Rejected COVID-19 Specimens during 2020-2022 in the Port Elizabeth Laboratory

In a cross-sectional study, a retrospective review of records was used where an Excel spreadsheet of all specimens received for COVID-19 during the study period was filtered. The researcher worked on only the specimens from the specific catchment area. Rejected COVID-19 specimens were also received on an Excel spreadsheet. The reasons for rejections were used to identify the types and frequency of errors that led to specimen rejection. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize prevalence and participant characteristics. All rejection reasons that were due to pre-analytic errors were then analysed and categorised, using STATA, according to the recorded rejections during the study period.