DHS attributes new single-day high increase of COVID-19 cases to reporting issues

The Department of Health Services reported a record-setting 1,498 more cases of COVID-19 on Friday, a high in daily new cases that the agency attributed to laboratory test reporting issues that it’s now resolved.

There have now been 79,354 confirmed cases of the disease in the state. Seven more deaths were reported, for a total of 1,153.

There were 11,702 more people tested, for a total of 1,289,557. The positivity rate was 12.8 percent.

“The negative and positive case numbers look higher today due to problems with the laboratory test reporting that have now been fixed,” DHS tweeted. “Remember to look at seven-day trends to get the full picture of how the state is doing.”

The seven-day average for the positivity rate rose to 9.1 percent. The seven-day average for newly reported COVID-19 cases is 768.