After dealing with weeks of criticism for not being transparent with information about the coronavirus, state officials on Wednesday acknowledged that a test type that does not determine active cases inflated published test counts by 57,000, or roughly 14%of overall tests to date.
For weeks now, the Department of Public Health has consisted of antibody tests, which can find if somebody when had the coronavirus, with diagnostic tests that determine active infection in its total tally of about 403,000 tests.
Specialists state it is misguiding to count the tests together because it misshapes a state’s capability to track present infections.
The department’s addition of antibody tests in testing counts, initially reported by the Ledger-Enquirer in Columbus, shocked DPH Commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey and prompted the guv’s workplace to demand that the department remove antibody tests from the state’s overalls. Toomey informed the AJC she was unaware many antibody tests were being included.
” It’s not really an error. It’s a way it was collected,” she said. “I didn’t totally appreciate how many antibody tests have been done.”
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The screening admission is the current in a series of bad moves in how DPH has provided coronavirus data to the general public, and it led to another round of severe criticism for a company that has been held up to national ridicule for its handling of public health details.
” Either they don’t know what they’re doing, or (the information is) being controlled in ways it shouldn’t,” said Dr. Harry J. Heiman, a clinical associate teacher at the Georgia State University School of Public Health. “In any case it is very worrying.”
In April, Gov. Brian Kemp called the state’s bad nationwide ranking in its share of citizens checked for the infection “ unacceptable,” and challenged public health officials and personal companies ramp up the state’s screening capability. Previously this week, he openly promoted the state’s rise to 20 th in the nation as an essential advance.
Getting rid of antibody tests from the state’s screening overall, nevertheless, now drops Georgia’s per capita ranking to 29 th, according to the AJC’s analysis of national screening information.
Specialist warnings
Specialists warn states versus lumping antibody and diagnostic infection tests together as they track how lots of tests have been finished.
Tests for the antibody are designed to reveal whether a person was formerly infected and miss out on individuals who recently contracted the virus, said Benjamin Lopman, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Emory University.
