Florida changes COVID reporting requirements, saying labs did not share negative results

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Department of Health on Wednesday blamed labs around the state for failing to report all their coronavirus test results.

DeSantis said labs initially were reporting only their positive results and though they are required to report both, some haven’t.

“A number of labs are still doing the default, sending positive only without negatives,” he said. “They are not trying to be underhanded. But we have identified it and they will start doing the negatives as well.”

The Department of Health’s statewide report this week lists only positive results for more than 300 labs, information that labs say does not reflect their total tests. The discrepancy makes it difficult for local public health officials to rely on the state data to track the pandemic across communities.

Labs reporting all positives and no negatives range from PanCare of Florida in Panama City with 405 results to Florida Health Care Plans with one positive result.

The exclusion of negatives has the potential to skew a key statistic known as the positivity rate, or the percent of total tests that are positive, an indicator of community spread. It’s unclear how significantly the incomplete reporting may have altered the state’s COVID-19 tracking statistics.

The Florida Department of Health said earlier Wednesday it was aware of the situation.

“All COVID-19 cases are confirmed through diagnostic and antigen testing and then reported to the state by the labs performing the testing. Private and public laboratories are required to report positive and negative test results to the state immediately,” the Florida Department of Health said Wednesday in a written statement.

While some labs had not reported negative results, others said they were — but the state COVID dashboard did not include them.

Lab24 in Miami is listed as reporting 457 results — all positive. In fact, the lab says, it has tested about 10,000 people in Florida. Mike Ross, a spokesman for Lab24, had said the state requires private labs to notify health officials only of positive results, which is all the lab sent. Now, the lab is going back, county by county, to report their full results. Including the negatives, Ross said, Lab24 is seeing an 18.5% positivity rate.

Florida reporting its positivity rate as 11% on Wednesday.

The lab works with private employers and community organizations to test where needed.

“We are resubmitting our reports so they can update their records,” Ross said, adding that he became aware of the situation from reporters and as of early Wednesday hadn’t heard from state health officials.

Lee Memorial, a large health system in Fort Myers, is listed as having three of its sites reporting only positive results. A spokeswoman said those labs fax the local health department only their positive results so health officials can do contact tracing. Those are the positives appearing in state reports.

Lee Memorial has eight labs reporting results and also sends electronic reports containing both positive and negative results to the state.

“We aren’t sure if the positive cases on the reports faxed are being excluded after we send the electronic reports,” Lee Health spokeswoman Pat Dolce said. The entire Lee Memorial Health System has tested 30,094 people, some of them processed at private labs, too. Its total positivity rate is about 18%. But Dolce says some of the results may be reported by Quest or Labcorp.

“So many labs reporting only positives doesn’t make sense,” said Rebel Cole, a business professor at Florida Atlantic University, which is about to publish its own data tracker. “We need to demand they provide better data. The Department of Health already is under a lot of pressure for lack of transparency in their dashboard. They need to step up and make accurate information available.”

During a news briefing Wednesday, DeSantis said the volume of test results, more than 90,000 a day, makes it difficult for labs reporting into the state system to keep up. “All the data is coming from different places and we have to do the best we can,” he said.

The Department of Health, in its emailed statement, said, “In recent days, the Florida Department of Health noticed that some smaller, private labs weren’t reporting negative test result data to the state. The Department immediately began working with those labs to ensure that all results were being reported in order to provide comprehensive and transparent data. As the state continues to receive results from various labs, the Department will continue educating these labs on proper protocol for reporting COVID-19 test results.”

In Orlando, two health systems found discrepancies in the state report. The report showed that Orlando Health had a 98% positivity rate with 522 tests. But the hospital CEO said the hospitals in its system have processed 5,206 positive tests of the 53,932 it administered, with an overall rate of 9.7%, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

The report also showed that the Orlando Veteran’s Medical Center had a positivity rate of 76%. A spokesperson for the VA said the positivity rate for the center is actually 6%.

Cole at FAU said he wants to see random surveillance testing within communities. “That gives you a more accurate idea of prevalence in a population instead of tests in hot spots like Belle Glade and prisons.”

New test results for 80,300 individuals were reported to the Department of Health on Tuesday. Of those 10,181 are positive for a positivity rate of 12.6%. Miami-Dade remains the Florida county with the highest spread of the virus.

With test results now taking a week instead of two days at some state sites, DeSantis said his staff will review which labs take long to process results and steer business from state sites to those labs that are processing tests fast.

If you have a health-related story idea or tip, Cindy Goodman can be reached at cgoodman@sunsentinel.com, 954-304-5908, Twitter and Instagram @cindykgoodman

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