State health officials Sunday reported 8,133 new cases of COVID-19 and 12 new deaths. The state now has 351,419 cases and 5,996 deaths. For the last five days, the data on the state’s coronavirus website has been labeled “incomplete”, with thousands of reports pending review. And it’s unclear when the label will be removed. Ohio Public Radio's Karen Kasler reports:
A flood of antigen tests came from the federal government late last month. Those tests are less sensitive than the PCR tests the state has been using, so Governor Mike DeWine says Ohio has been double-checking some 12,000 antigen test results.
“We started to do that. And so nothing is actually confirmed until we get that positive from antigen. But then they go back and they do some additional fact checking.”
The Ohio Department of Health also reported system errors and local health departments have been struggling with reduced staff and huge numbers of cases. A Department of Health spokesperson said in a text that there’s no estimated timeframe to reconcile the backlog.
