Military healthcare insurance company Tricare sent an email to 600,000 individuals telling them they were Covid19 positive and to consider donating blood plasma to aid in Covid19 research.
“As a survivor of COVID-19, it’s safe to donate whole blood or blood plasma, and your donation could help other COVID-19 patients. Your plasma likely has antibodies (or proteins) present that might help fight the coronavirus infection,’ the message read.
‘Currently, there is no cure for COVID-19. However, there is information that suggests plasma from COVID-19 survivors, like you, might help some patients recover more quickly from COVID-19.’
Only 31,000 associated with the U.S. Military have tested positive for Covid19, however.
Tricare’s erroneous message created fear and confusion for a number of beneficiaries, Military.com reported.
“Just wondering [if] anybody [got] an email from Tricare saying since you are a COVID survivor, please donate your plasma?? I have NOT been tested,” wrote one beneficiary on Facebook.
“Just remember all those people inputting data are human and make mistakes.”
Humana Military, the company that manages Tricare’s East Region, issued an apology six hours after the initial message.
“In an attempt to educate beneficiaries who live close to convalescent plasma donation centers about collection opportunities, you received an email incorrectly suggesting you were a COVID-19 survivor. You have not been identified as a COVID-19 survivor and we apologize for the error and any confusion it may have caused,” the correction email read.
Humana had issued a call to blood donors located near military installations that are collecting plasma from recovered coronavirus patients as a potential treatment for the illness.
“Language used in email messages to approximately 600k beneficiaries gave the impression that we were attempting to reach only people who had tested positive for COVID-19,” said Marvin Hill, a spokesperson for Humana.
“We quickly followed the initial email with a clear and accurate second message acknowledging this. We apologize.”
The development comes as many states are grappling with test data that has proven to be false upon investigation.
Brock Ballou of Nashville said he received at least three calls from the state of Tennessee regarding his apparent symptoms after testing for coronavirus earlier this month, The Daily Mail reported. But Ballou was never sick and was never tested he says.
We’ve outlined numerous errors by labs in Connecticut, as well as Florida on their false positive Covid19 numbers, and cases where fatalities were listed as Covid19 deaths that were completely unrelated to the virus.
Photo by U.S. Army – Sgt. Deonte Rowell