Madison Area Lyme Support Group

JT Cestkowski

MADISON (WKOW) — Public Health Madison and Dane County addressed Friday its struggle to process a backlog of negative COVID-19 test results, skewing its reported infection rates.

According to DHS secratary Andrea Palm, this was a problem plaguing many municipalities across the state.

“As they prioritized those positive cases, negative cases are dragging behind a day or two or even three as they are making sure they’re focusing on stopping the spread,”she said.

In a massive update, the online data dashboard public health maintains added around 17,000 negative test results adjusting the positive rate from the past week down to 2.1 percent. (See link for article)

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Important quote:

Public health uses the percent positive rate as one of its metrics in the Forward Dane reopening plan governing how and when certain social distancing measures, including many imposed on businesses, can be relaxed or eliminated.