Texas Pulls 3,500 'Probable' Cases Off State's Official COVID Tally

Brittany M. Hughes | July 17, 2020
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Texas has pulled a nearly 3,500 COVID cases off its books after it turns out the San Antonio Health Department was including “probable” COVID cases for people who’d never actually been tested for the virus.

The state clarified why they were pulling 3,484 cases from their statewide tally, saying that San Antonio is only one of three Texas locales that count both confirmed and “probable” cases. Combining these totals, Bexar County had reported more than 21,000 COVID cases, but that number has now been dropped to about 17,000 in the state’s report.

“The San Antonio Metro Health District has clarified its reporting to separate confirmed and probable cases, so the Bexar County and statewide totals have been updated to remove 3,484 probable cases,” the state said, adding, “The local case count previously included probable cases identified by antigen testing but not those from antibody testing or other sources.”

Between faulty tests, data errors, and inconsistent reporting standards, critics of the government’s handling of the pandemic and the subsequent economic shutdowns have expressed plenty of doubt over official state and local COVID counts. Earlier this weekFox 35 in Orlando investigated the astronomically high numbers being reported from several health facilities in Florida, where anywhere between 88 and 100 percent of all COVID tests are supposedly coming back positive, and found that not only was some of the data wrong - it was off by miles. The investigation found that Centra Care, for example, reported all 83 people they tested as being positive for COVID, while the Orlando Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center reported a suspiciously high 76 percent positive rate.

Meanwhile, the reporters also found that the 98 percent positive rate being reported by Orlando Health was, in fact, completely wrong – and by a factor of about 10. The health provider later claimed that an unknown “mistake” had been made and that their positive COVID rate was only about 9 percent.

 

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