MIAMI (AP) - The Florida government on Sunday reported an increase in confirmed cases of COVID-19 a day after not releasing virus data, citing a data glitch.
The Florida Department of Health tallied 3,700 new known cases, the highest daily caseload since late August. On Saturday, there were 1,790 new confirmed cases.
The state also reported 180 new COVID-19 deaths but that number reflected two days of data reporting.
Health officials said that state COVID-19 data was not released Saturday because of what appeared to be the receipt of about 400,000 previously reported test results from a private lab. The state said epidemiologists spent the ensuing 24 hours figuring out which ones were duplicate reports, and then resumed normal data reporting on Sunday.
The state Health Department, in a statement on its website, said that the glitch was neither the fault of the private company, Helix, nor the department, and it said that technical experts were working to ensure that the problem was not repeated.
As of Sunday, Florida had reported 734,491 known cases of coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic and 15,552 deaths.
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This story was first published on Oct. 11, 2020. It was updated on Oct. 13, 2020, to show that a glitch in the reporting of Florida’s COVID-19 data was not caused by a problem with a private laboratory. The glitch was deemed by the state Health Department to be neither the fault of the private company, Helix, nor of the department.
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