Estero 9/1/20 Florida Department of Health Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update

~Daily Report Contains Delayed Reporting Data from Quest Diagnostics~

TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Department of Health (DOH), in order to provide more comprehensive data, releases a report on COVID-19 cases in Florida once per day. Today’s daily report includes a one-time historical data submission from Quest Diagnostics Lab. The nearly 75,000 results date back to April and have little impact on the state of the pandemic today.

Today, data reported to DOH shows there has been a steady decline in the number of reported Florida resident deaths who were previously diagnosed with COVID-19. The third week of July compared to the third week of August, shows a nearly 70 percent decrease in the average number of reported COVID-19 related deaths

Today, Florida had the twentieth straight day below 10 percent positivity of new cases.

Today, as reported at 11 a.m., there are 7,569 new positive COVID-19 cases, out of those, 3,870 were results older two weeks, some dating back to April, per a delay in reporting from Quest Diagnostic Labs. Today, as reported at 11 a.m., there are 187 reported deaths – 4 occurred yesterday, August 31. As posted on the Agency for Health Care Administration’s hospitalization dashboard at 2:45 p.m., there are 3,624 current hospitalizations with a primary diagnosis of COVID-19.

Test results for more than 127,900 individuals were reported to DOH as of midnight, on Monday, August 31. On August 31, 6.81 percent of new cases** tested positive. This new case positivity rate includes a one-time historical data submission from Quest Diagnostics Labs, the percent positivity excluding the large data submission was 5.89 percent.

To date, there are a total of 631,040 Florida cases*** with 11,374 deaths related to COVID-19.

Since August 31, the death of one hundred eighty-seven Florida residents who tested positive for COVID-19 have been reported in Baker, Bay, Broward, Calhoun, Charlotte, Citrus, Collier, Columbia, Dade, Duval, Escambia, Gulf, Hernando, Indian River, Lafayette, Lake, Lee, Leon, Madison, Manatee, Marion, Nassau, Orange, Palm Beach, Pinellas, Polk, Putnam, Santa Rosa, Sarasota, Seminole, St. Johns, St. Lucie, Sumter, Taylor and Volusia counties.

Florida long-term care facility data:

• The list of long-term care facilities with active COVID-19 cases is available here.
• The list of long-term care facilities with deaths is available here, which is updated weekly.
• To date, 4,759 individuals that were staff or residents of a long-term care facility have died.

In order to make the daily COVID-19 report easier to download and more accessible, the daily report separates case line data in a separate PDF. The case line data report is available here. The state also provides a report detailing surveillance data for every Florida county, which is available here. The antibody COVID-19 test results report will be provided once a week and contains county, race and lab information on antibody COVID-19 tests conducted in Florida. The report for antibody tests conducted by private health care providers is available here and the report for antibody tests conducted at state-supported COVID-19 testing sites is available here.

Florida Department of Health and Florida Division of Emergency Management Sever Ties with Quest Diagnostics After Quest Failed to Follow Florida Law
~Testing Company Attempted to Dump 75,000 COVID-19 Test Results from as far back as April~

TALLAHASSEE — Today, at the direction of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the Florida Department of Health (DOH) and the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) will be severing all ties with Quest Diagnostics after Quest’s failure to follow Florida law and report all COVID-19 results in a timely manner. Quest’s failure to report nearly 75,000 results dating back to April means most of the data in today’s upload – while it will have historical significance – will have little impact on the status of the pandemic today.

Per Quest, all individuals that tested positive were notified of their results. Therefore, while significant, this unacceptable dump of test results is a data issue and does not impact the health of individuals or the spread of COVID-19 in Florida. Quest Diagnostics is a large, nationwide lab that provides testing at private sites, as well as performing limited testing through the state.

Upon announcing this action, Governor DeSantis said, “The law requires all COVID-19 results to be reported to DOH in a timely manner.  To drop this much unusable and stale data is irresponsible. I believe that Quest has abdicated their ability to perform a testing function in Florida that the people can be confident in. As such I am directing all executive agencies to sever their COVID-19 testing relationships with Quest effective immediately.”

Monday night, August 31, the Governor’s office was informed that nearly 75,000 tests, dating as far back as April, were to be entered into the DOH COVID-19 monitoring system. While the data, for the most part were over 2 weeks old – with some being almost 5 months old – the state incorporated information that would be useful and included the rest in the interest of transparency.

Without the backlog of Quest results, the positivity rate for new cases on August 31, 2020 is 5.9%.