The State of Connecticut has gotten on board with the CDC to report negative test results to help the agency better track the spread of the coronavirus, leaving Ohio and Maryland as the only holdouts in complying with federal law.
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont on Thursday afternoon announced he would require private labs to inform the state of all negative results. His announcement, along with new measures to fight the spread of the coronavirus, is available here.
While the Connecticut Department of Public Health (DPH) State Laboratory in Rocky Hill has been publicly releasing data on the number of tests conducted at its facility that have returned negative results for the virus, private laboratories have not been providing the state with similar statistics for tests conducted at each of their facilities. Acknowledging the benefits to the public of having this information, yesterday evening the Lamont administration signed an order requiring all private laboratories in the state to begin releasing this information to DPH effective immediately so that it can be publicly reported and collected with the data on negative tests results from the State Laboratory. That data is anticipated to be received soon and will be publicly shared.
As The Ohio Star reported Saturday, Ohio is one of only two states that are refusing to cooperate with requests from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to provide accurate data on the total number of positive and negative tests of coronavirus tests conducted in the state.
“Having data on negatives, as well as positives, helps us understand the burden of disease. Having that data also gives us insight on the amount of testing being done overall,” a spokesman for the CDC told The Star on Friday.
State-by-state data and grades are available at The COVID Tracking Project here. This includes confirmation Ohio and Maryland are not reporting negative results from private labs.
Some states, like Tennessee, had also not been reporting negative results from private labs.
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) said Thursday that every state must report aggregated data of coronavirus testing to it, and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said the state will finally comply, the Nashville Post reported. The CDC’s authority comes from the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.
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Jason M. Reynolds has more than 20 years’ experience as a journalist at outlets of all sizes.
