Florida's rate of coronavirus infections hits high for August, but state blames lab for backlog in results
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — At first, it appeared that a higher percentage of people in Florida were testing positive for COVID-19 than at any time since late July, raising concerns the virus may be tightening its grip on the state.
But the Florida Department of Health said on Twitter that the data on its Wednesday report was skewed because a Miami lab just dumped over 4,000 case results from the past seven weeks.
“Therefore, this backlog severely skews today’s daily report for Miami-Dade & is not reflective of current trends,” the Tweet said, citing Niznik Lab Corp. as the source for the delay of test results getting to the state.
Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez wrote in a Tweet that 2,941 of the backlogged cases were from his county. He said state and county administrators were looking into what happened.
