Some Florida labs report 100 percent positivity rates
The Florida Department of Health released its daily coronavirus testing report showing a statewide positivity rate of 11 percent, but FOX 35 quickly noticed some shocking positivity rates.
ORLANDO, Fla. – After FOX 35 News noted errors in the state’s report on positivity rates, the Florida Department of Health said some labs have not been reporting negative test result data to the state.
Countless labs have reported a 100 percent positivity rate, meaning that each person tested was positive. Other laboratories had very high positivity rates. FOX 35 News found that test sites like local Centra Care reported that 83 people were tested and all tested positive. Then NCF Diagnostics in Alachua reported that 88 percent of the tests were positive.
How is it possible? FOX 35 News investigated these astronomical numbers, contacting each local location mentioned in the report.
The report showed that Orlando Health had a 98 percent positivity rate. However, when FOX 35 News contacted the hospital, they confirmed errors in the report. Orlando Health’s positivity rate is only 9.4 percent, not 98 percent as in the report.
MORE NEWS: Florida has the biggest jump in a single day in COVID-19 deaths to date, with 132 more reported
The report also showed that the Orlando Veterans Medical Center had a 76 percent positivity rate. A VA spokesperson told FOX 35 News on Tuesday that this does not reflect their numbers and that the center’s positivity rate is actually 6 percent.
FOX 35 News spoke Tuesday with the Florida Department of Health. They confirmed that although public and private laboratories are required to report positive and negative results to the state immediately, some have not. Specifically, they said some smaller private labs did not report negative test results data to the state.
“The Department immediately began working with those laboratories to ensure that all results were reported in order to provide complete and transparent data,” said a spokesman for the Florida Department of Health. “As the state continues to receive results from various laboratories, the Department will continue to educate these laboratories on the proper protocol for reporting the results of the COVID-19 test.”
MORE NEWS: What the record number of positive COVID-19 tests in Florida really means
Florida is currently experiencing a spike in COVID-19 cases, reporting that state-reported daily cases have gone from about 2,000 a day a month ago to more than 12,000. Then on Tuesday, state health officials reported the largest increase in single-day deaths to date, as 132 more were announced.
Doctors had been predicting that an increase in deaths would follow Florida’s leap in cases reported daily. The increased workload is due in part to increased testing, but a higher percentage of tests return positive, from 6 percent a month ago to more than 18 percent.
Almost all people infected with the coronavirus survive, but those who succumb generally die two or more weeks after the first diagnosis.
While Florida has broken national records for jumps in cases, the state’s death toll is nowhere near the national record. When COVID-19 devastated New York three months ago, it recorded 799 deaths on April 9 and had a seven-day average of 763 deaths on April 14. New York now has one of the lowest death rates per capita in the country, registering 10 per day for the past week.
The latest report from the Florida Department of Health can be seen below. Includes statewide laboratory positivity rates.
MOBILE USERS: Click here to view the Florida Department of Health Tuesday’s report
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