Local News Station Investigation Found That Several Labs in Florida Reported Only Positive COVID-19 Tests

 

 

The coronavirus situation has led to many questions nationwide about the best approaches to public health, and many local, state and national officials have chosen to focus on coronavirus tests as the gold standard for keeping things under control.

Testing stations can be found across the United States, from small towns to larger cities, as governments seek to find out the overall numbers of cases for several different purposes.

While testing has become a key focus for political leaders and medical facilities everywhere, a series of events in Florida has called into question many original numbers  according to reports from local Fox and CBS stations.

The discrepancies involve a surprising admission by Governor Ron DeSantis about how test results were reported, and it’s something that everyone should be aware of in their own areas because of the enormous impact it may be having on how the disease is being perceived.

 

Investigation Reveals: Several Labs Across Florida Reported “100 Percent Positivity” Of All Coronavirus Tests

Are testing sites in Florida and other states leaving out key information in their reporting of positive vs. negative cases of coronavirus in their particular areas and/or cities?

According to the aforementioned investigation by FOX35 News in Florida this past month, the answer is a resounding “yes” in the Sunshine State.

“After FOX 35 News noticed errors in the state’s report on positivity rates, the Florida Department of Health said that some laboratories have not been reporting negative test result data to the state,” a July 13 report by Robert Guaderrama states.

Upon further review, it was found that “countless labs have reported a 100 percent positivity rate, which means every single person tested was positive.

“Other labs had very high positivity rates,” the report continues.

“FOX 35 News found that testing sites like one local Centra Care reported that 83 people were tested and all tested positive. Then, NCF Diagnostics in Alachua reported 88 percent of tests were positive.

 

Florida Governor and Hospitals Respond, Admit Incorrect COVID-19 Reporting

In response to the investigation, several other hospitals including Lee Memorial in Fort Myers came forward with concerns according to FOX 35 News.

The news station was told by the Florida Department of Health (FDOH) that it would begin looking into the issue, prompting admissions by local hospitals and the governor that things needed to change.

“Laboratories we spoke to said they were only following the instructions from the state to report only positive cases,” the report said.

“We’re doing now 90,000 tests a day, so these things are being put in and it’s a huge amount of volume, and so we understand some of the labs, it doesn’t always get reported soon.”

Governor Ron DeSantis admitted that the state had not been reporting negatives some time, skewing the statistics and making the rates of positive tests seem inflated.

“The law requires for a reportable illness that if someone tests positive, it’s reported.  That’s sort of the underlying law,” DeSantis said.

“We then said, I think in one of my executive orders, report the negatives too, and that’s how we look to see percent positive and try to evaluate,” he added.

“There were a number of labs who were just doing kind of what the default is, which is sending the positives only without sending the negatives.”

Shortly after the investigation came out, the Florida Department of Health offered a statement saying it had begun working with the labs to stop the errors from occurring. The Lee Hospital system also said that mobile testing sites weren’t including their results, but the confusion was palpable.

But two days later, a review of state data found that many small, private labs had continually been reporting only positive results to the state — skewing the positivity rate even higher.

“Today alone there are 98 labs reporting positive results, accounting for 355 positive tests,” said Jon Taylor, a PhD student at Florida Atlantic University, to CBS News in a July 17 report.

Several dozen labs were still reporting 100% positivity rates as of mid-July according to a review of the Department’s data as well.

“It should be concerning,” Taylor said, adding that he had been working with another FAU professor on their own COVID tracker.

“We are basing decisions off of the positivity rate, and we need to know why some labs are reporting 100 percent positive tests.”

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