'Error made': Austin family loses Bahamas trip after false positive COVID test

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- An Austin family said after months of planning and saving, they had to cancel their Bahamas trip because of a positive COVID-19 test which later turned out to be a false positive.

Michael Perez and Lima Morales said they got PCR tested for COVID-19 at the Austin Regional Clinic in Round Rock to ensure their family was not carrying the virus asymptomatically before getting on a plane. At the time, the Bahamas also required a negative test within 72-hours to enter the country. That rule has since been lifted.

Perez and the couple's two young daughters both had negative results, but Morales' test came back positive. Morales said she called the clinic to ask if she should get retested and a nurse told her PCR tests are the most accurate, and that she had COVID-19.

"I was devastated," Morales said. "I was just kept thinking about my little girls. I'm like, 'oh, no, they were so excited.'"

An Austin couple said they had to cancel their trip to the Bahamas after getting a positive COVID-19 which later turned out to be a false negative (KXAN photo)

A couple days later, after the family canceled their first trip out of the country since the pandemic started, the clinic called back and said the test result was inaccurate and that Morales was actually negative, the family told KXAN.

We have reached out to the Austin Regional Clinic and made contact with a spokesperson, but not heard back with a statement from the company. This story will be updated when we get it.

KXAN was provided medical records from the family which show the test result was "corrected" from positive to negative. The records show the false negative test was due to a "lab error" but does not elaborate.

The family said they followed up with the clinic and asked to be reimbursed for the trip and after back and forth for several months, the family said they're not expecting to get any money back. To rebook the trip now, it's going to cost roughly $6,000 more they said. They reached out to KXAN now to warn others about the possibility of getting a false negative test.

"We were ready to take our girls, for the first time, to the beach and we wanted to make it a magical experience and to find out that we got robbed of that was really upsetting," Perez said.

"Mistakes can be made. In our case they were made."

A spokesperson for Austin Public Health said it's "rare that a false positive PCR is reported to us" and pointed to the CDC's information on what factors can impact a test. Health leaders, like the ones at UC Health, also say false positive PCR tests are very rare.