[chrisk]

This is the message on the SCC dashboard

Due to a significant and unresolved problem with the State of California’s reporting system for communicable diseases (California Reportable Disease Information Exchange (CalREDIE)), the County of Santa Clara Public Health Department, as well as county public health departments statewide, are experiencing significant underreporting of COVID-19 testing results. The State has informed us that counties have received incomplete information regarding test results, which affects our ability to identify new cases of COVID-19, to accurately report the testing positivity rate in our community, and to identify the number of persons tested for the last few weeks. Without timely reports of all new lab results, it is impossible for State and local health officials to identify the extent to which COVID-19 is circulating in the community. It also hinders our ability to conduct effective contact tracing and case investigations to slow the spread of COVID-19.

We do not yet know the extent of this issue or when the State will be able to resolve it, but we are in communication with the State and have offered to provide whatever assistance it may need to rapidly resolve this issue. In the meantime, we will continue to report the testing data we do receive and will make clear to the public which data reported on our website are affected by this issue. The State confirmed that the data actually received is valid, but incomplete. We expect the testing positivity rate, the daily and cumulative case counts, and other data points on the County’s COVID-19 data dashboards to change as more complete test results are reported to the County of Santa Clara Public Health Department.

[chrisk]

This is the message on the SCC dashboard

Due to a significant and unresolved problem with the State of California’s reporting system for communicable diseases (California Reportable Disease Information Exchange (CalREDIE)), the County of Santa Clara Public Health Department, as well as county public health departments statewide, are experiencing significant underreporting of COVID-19 testing results. The State has informed us that counties have received incomplete information regarding test results, which affects our ability to identify new cases of COVID-19, to accurately report the testing positivity rate in our community, and to identify the number of persons tested for the last few weeks. Without timely reports of all new lab results, it is impossible for State and local health officials to identify the extent to which COVID-19 is circulating in the community. It also hinders our ability to conduct effective contact tracing and case investigations to slow the spread of COVID-19.

We do not yet know the extent of this issue or when the State will be able to resolve it, but we are in communication with the State and have offered to provide whatever assistance it may need to rapidly resolve this issue. In the meantime, we will continue to report the testing data we do receive and will make clear to the public which data reported on our website are affected by this issue. The State confirmed that the data actually received is valid, but incomplete. We expect the testing positivity rate, the daily and cumulative case counts, and other data points on the County’s COVID-19 data dashboards to change as more complete test results are reported to the County of Santa Clara Public Health Department.