MACON, Ga. — UPDATE, 6:45 p.m.:
According to a joint statement from Navicent Health and the Department of Public Health, the inflated number of cases reported in Bibb County was caused by a large data dump from Navicent Health.
The statement says Navicent Health has been working to automate reporting of its COVID-19 lab test results to the Georgia Department of Public Health. Monday, the two systems connected and the DPH state record system received a large number of automatic reports from the Medical Center, Navicent Health, adding 21,000 electronic lab reports to DPH's database. The data received includes COVID-19 tests collected in mid-June, causing case numbers to be reported inaccurately.
Navicent and DPH say while a large amount of records appear to be previously-reported duplicates that will be removed, there are still several new cases. DPH and North Central Health District are working with Navicent Health to review the data and hope to have the issue resolved soon.
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State health officials are investigating a possible foulup that may have inflated the number of new COVID-19 cases in Bibb County.
The state Department of Public Health website on Monday listed 5,302 cases in Bibb. That’s 778 more cases in the county than were reported on Sunday, and based on recent Bibb County rates, that’s 10 to 14 days’ worth of new cases.Michael Hokanson, spokesman for the state’s North Central Health District, says they’re checking on whether that number is correct.
There may have been an error, possibly involving a commercial third party that did a “data dump.”
It’s also possible that the 778 new cases included duplicates, he said.He says DPH officials don’t expect an answer Monday on whether the numbers were wrong and how it happened.
In the seven-day period that ended Sunday, Bibb County averaged 68 new COVID-19 cases a day.
Adding 778 new cases on Monday would have increased that to 167 new cases a day for the past week.