Woman quarantining after COVID test invalid due to cold

Rhonda Pachal was returning from the United States when she tried to provide a negative test to avoid the 14-day quarantine.

But she says the tests she was given were invalid and now, as a result, she is stuck at home for two weeks.

“It’s been a nightmare,” Pachal told Discover Estevan.

She was returning from Las Vegas where she was watching her son play for the Henderson Silver Knights. She had flown to Minot and was travelling home by vehicle.

She said she was given a test kit from the North Portal border officer.

“He told me not to get the kit cold or have it frozen and so I just left it on my front seat and drove home and took it into the house,” Pachal said. “After that, the nightmare started.”

Pachal said she had to book a virtual appointment with a lab from B.C. in order to show her negative test to avoid the 14-day quarantine required by the federal government for people coming into Canada.

“I had made 10 phone calls trying to get this kit registered with LifeLabs in B.C. and finally I was able to make a virtual appointment,” Pachal said.

After some more difficulties getting her appointment, she eventually had one.

But that’s when the person alerted her that her kit had become invalid. The person said they would send her another box in the mail but she told them it would be invalid as well since Saskatchewan was dealing with such extreme cold.

“When it goes in my mailbox, it’s going to be frozen,” she said.

So she decided to drive back to the customs office at North Portal to get another test kit.

“The officer gets me another test kit and I say, ‘Can we open this before I leave?’ so I open the first box and the indicator on the outside has a red dot which means that it is invalid,” Pachal said. “So he goes to a totally different box and brings me another test kit which ended up being the same – it has a red dot in it and its invalid.”

She said there were three other officers in the office at the time and they indicated all the tests were being kept in a warehouse.

When she asked if the warehouse was heated, they said it wasn’t.

“I said all of the boxes they have in there would be invalid,” Pachal said.

And with no tests available, she was unable to provide what was needed and is now in quarantine.

“(Monday) I received an email from the Government of Canada stating that I had to quarantine for 14 days because that COVID test hadn’t been done in 24 hours and that’s the requirement. There was absolutely no way for me to get it done in 24 hours,” Pachal said. “So now I sit here in quarantine, not knowing what else is going to happen.”

With files from Discover Estevan’s Scott Boulton