California virus cases underreported, health official says

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Figures showing California has slowed the rate of coronavirus infections may be in doubt because a technical problem has delayed reporting of test results, the state's top health official said.

For days, California hasn't received full counts on the number of tests conducted nor the number that come back positive for COVID-19, Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said Tuesday.

He blamed an unspecified technical problem affecting the state's database that provides test results to local health departments. Ghaly said it's unclear when the issue would be fixed, adding that the state is relaying information manually to county health officials.

The announcement came a day after Gov. Gavin Newsom gave his most optimistic report on the state’s virus efforts since a second surge of cases in early June. Newsom said daily cases had dropped by an average of 2,200 in the last week and the infection rate of 6.1% was significantly lower than the nearly 8% recorded last month.

The latest daily tally posted Tuesday on California's COVID-19 data page showed 4,526 additional confirmed positives, the lowest total in more than six weeks and a precipitous drop from the record of nearly 13,000 reported two weeks ago.

However, the page now carries a disclaimer saying the actual daily number of positive cases is being underreported.

At issue is CalREDIE, a state system that electronically receives COVID-19 test data from lab providers. The name is short for the California Reportable Disease Information Exchange.

“There’s a specific component that feeds information from labs to both the state’s system and the local public health system," Ghaly said. “That may actually be the place where data is getting stuck.”

Counties including Orange and...