JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Florida Department of Health on Sunday reported 5,570 additional coronavirus cases and 180 more deaths, but those numbers reflect two days of data reporting.
The daily reports resumed Sunday after Saturday’s reports were skipped due to a previously reported data dump from one lab.
Recommended Videos
The state Department of Health said it received 400,000 previously reported COVID-19 test results from Helix Laboratory, a private lab not affiliated with the state of Florida, on Friday night, so the massive size of the data file and the need to deduplicate hundreds of thousands of results led to the one-day delay in reporting.
It’s not the first time the state has cited problems with private laboratories. In early September, the state severed ties with Quest Diagnostics after the company failed to submit timely results of tens of thousands of COVID-19 test results, some dating as far back as April.
Gov. Ron DeSantis then questioned the reliability of testing data for making policy decisions.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Florida has recorded a total of 734,491 COVID-19 cases and 15,552 deaths, the Department of Health said Sunday. That’s up from the 728,921 cases and 15,372 deaths that the state reported Friday.
Sunday’s data showed 16 additional deaths in Northeast Florida: nine in Duval County and one each in Nassau, Baker, Bradford, Columbia, Flagler, Putnam and Union counties.
Common symptoms of COVID-19 include fever, cough, breathing trouble, sore throat, muscle pain, and loss of taste or smell. Most people develop only mild symptoms. But some people, usually those with other medical complications, develop more severe symptoms, including pneumonia.