Florida's rate of coronavirus infections hits high for August, but state blames lab for backlog in results

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By Marc Freeman 
 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.
 The health department said everyone tested by the lab already got their results _ "continuously" since late June _ and this was "a reporting issue that has been corrected."
 Fred Piccolo, spokesman for Gov. Ron DeSantis, Tweeted that Niznik "dumped 46 days worth of COVID-19 test results from Miami/Broward/Palm Beach into today's case count massively skewing results (w/over 3,000 positive results) Another reason to look at date of infection/fatality rather than date the data was submitted."
 Florida posted a statewide positivity rate of 11.9% for the previous day, the highest on a daily pandemic report since it was 12.1% on July 29. The report, marked "verified" as of 9:25 a.m. Eastern time Wednesday, does not show a disclaimer about the lab issue.
 Health officials first Tweeted the problem at 11:22 a.m., after the report was released online.
 The COVID-19 positivity rate indicates the prevalence of the disease, and state officials say they want positivity to be less than 10%. The daily statewide positivity was as low as 8.4% on Aug. 5, records show.
 The positivity rate for Miami-Dade was up to 18.3% on Wednesday's report, based on 22,451 test results. A day earlier, the state reported 11,161 test results for the county, which is about the usual amount.
 State health officials reported 8,109 new COVID-19 infections Wednesday; the state says it processed 81,200 results over the previous day. Miami-Dade accounted for more than half of the new cases for the entire state.
 Even with the backlog of cases, it marked the 18th consecutive day that the state has had fewer than 10,000 cases; the peak for one day was 15,300 cases reported on July 12. Test results reported on a single day typically reflect tests taken over several days.
 Overall, 550,901 people in Florida have been diagnosed with the virus.
 The state's pandemic death toll rose to 8,898, after health officials listed another 213 fatalities. The daily total is not reflective of deaths in the past 24 hours, but rather recent weeks.
 South Florida, which accounts for 29% of Florida's population, reported 4,909 new cases in the past day, or 60.5% of the daily total for the state.
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 _ Broward County: 475 new coronavirus cases were reported Wednesday, bringing the total to 64,080. The median age of those infected in the county is 39. A total of 885 people in Broward have died from the virus, three more than reported Tuesday.
 _ Palm Beach County: 293 new cases, bringing the total to 37,934. A total of 970 people have died, 14 more than reported the previous day. The median age of those infected in the county is 41.
 _ Miami-Dade County: 4,141 new cases, bringing the total to 139,271. A total of 1,955 people have died. That's 30 deaths more than reported Tuesday. The median age of those infected in the county is 43.
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 While Wednesday was a record for the number of new cases in the county on any day throughout the pandemic, the state blamed the backlog of data from Niznik Lab, dating back to June 23.
 "The lab reported over 4,000 cases occurring over the past 7 weeks, but which had not been reported to DOH until today," the health department tweeted. "Once DOH was informed of this testing data backlog, we immediately reached out to Niznik Lab & we are investigating the matter, along with Miami-Dade leadership."
 A total of almost 4.1 million people have been swabbed in Florida since the pandemic began, producing a positivity rate of 13.5%. The state reports that 3.54 million people have tested negative. At the end of May, Florida's positivity rate was about 5.6%.
 In South Florida the positivity rates Wednesday were 8.4% for Broward, down from Tuesday's 10.1%; 18.3% for Miami-Dade, up from 13.6%; and 6.1% for Palm Beach County, which is down from 8.7%. That's the lowest rate for Palm Beach County since June 6.
 Across the state, 6,439 people were hospitalized with a primary diagnosis of COVID-19 as of about 12:15 p.m. Wednesday. The state's online tool updates several times throughout the day. Broward County reported 771 patients hospitalized, Palm Beach County had 423, and Miami-Dade had 1,365, the most in the state.
 The number of people in hospitals for COVID-19 has been declining. The total hospitalized for the disease two weeks ago was nearly 9,000.
 Overall, Florida has reported a total of 31,947 people have been hospitalized from the virus since March.
 The official COVID-19 death total for Florida reached 8,898 on Wednesday. That figure includes 133 people who were not residents. South Florida's reported deaths on Wednesday rose by 47 for a total of 3,810, about 42.8% of the state's total.
 COVID-19 is the state's deadliest infectious disease. Throughout 2019, there were 2,703 deaths attributed to the flu and pneumonia in Florida, records show.
 At least 3,730 deaths have occurred among residents and staff of nursing homes and long-term care facilities, a figure that represents 42.6 of the state total for coronavirus deaths of residents.
 Miami-Dade County has the highest number of long-term care facility deaths, with 638, or 17.1% of the total. Palm Beach County had 390 deaths, or 10.5%, and Broward accounted for 258 deaths, or 6.9%.
 Florida has reported an average of about 164 deaths per day, or 1,147 total over the past seven days. Florida's death rate ranks 18th in the United States when compared with other states and the District of Columbia, with 39 deaths per 100,000 people, according to the Centers for Disease Control's COVID Data Tracker.
 The CDC does not list a death rate for New York state that includes New York City. The data for just New York City, the nation's original coronavirus epicenter, shows 281 deaths per 100,000 people. For New York state, excluding the city, it's 80 deaths per 100,000.
 Texas has 30 deaths per 100,000, and California has 26. California and Texas are the most populous states, followed by Florida and New York.
 Worldwide, the virus has infected 20.4 million people and has killed at least 744,211 as of 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, according to the Johns Hopkins University & Medicine Coronavirus Resource Center.
 The United States has over 5.1 million cases, the highest total in the world, and at least 164,976 people are dead, the most fatalities of any country. The U.S. has 4.3% of the world's population, but 25.3% of the world's cases and 22.2% of the world's deaths.
 Other countries with high death tolls are Brazil with over 103,000, Mexico with over 53,900, the United Kingdom with almost 46,800, India with over 46,000, Italy with over 35,200, and France with over 30,300.
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