DPH says large amount of test results released from single facility caused spike in reported COVID cases

On Friday, the state of Georgia recorded a high daily increase in coronavirus cases, the highest since before Labor Day.

The state reported 2,269 new cases, 37 deaths and 120 hospitalizations.

[SPECIAL SECTION: Coronavirus outbreak in Georgia]

The Department of Public Health sent out a tweet Friday evening saying that the state received about 12,000 tests from results from a single facility, making the number of cases much larger than previous days.

The current 7-day average of cases is at 1,400.

Today’s numbers put the total number of coronavirus cases in the state of Georgia at 347,759.

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Channel 2 Action News spoke to Nancy Nydam, the Director of Communications with the Georgia Department of Public Health, about whether delays in releasing test results are common.

“It happens from time to time where we get a batch of reports from a facility, for any number of reasons - could be they had an IT issue, could be catch up from a weekend. It could be a newly onboarded facility,” Nydam said. “And it can happen on any day of the week. Nothing odd about a Friday. These were all tests done in the last week to ten days, so it isn’t indicative of a bigger problem with a particular facility.”

The rest of the country has seen numbers spiking over the past few weeks, and it looks like Georgia is no exception.

Yesterday, the U.S. surpassed its highest number of daily cases since July 29, with 77,640 new cases across the country.

“Unfortunately, we’re seeing a distressing trend here in the United States, with Covid-19 cases increasing in nearly 75% of the country,” Jay Butler, deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Wednesday after multiple days of increasing caseloads.

Georgia’s positivity rate sits at 9.6%.

Everyone is encouraged to continue washing hands, practicing social distancing and wearing a mask when needed.

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