Massachusetts had 20 new deaths due to COVID-19, along with 109 new cases of the disease, the state reported Saturday, though officials cautioned the latest figures could be lower during the implementation of an upgrade to the state’s laboratory reporting system.
The Department of Public Health reported that the state’s confirmed death toll due to the disease rose to 8,690 as of Friday afternoon. The total number of confirmed cases of coronavirus was 115,850.
On Saturday, the state moved its reporting system to the Amazon Web Services platform, which is intended to greatly increase the state’s public health data collection capacity. The change may have lowered reported numbers of new deaths, cases, and tests related to the coronavirus, the agency said Friday.
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The changeover, which has been planned for many months, accommodates recent and expected growth in COVID-19 test volumes, according to Kevin Cranston, DPH’s assistant commissioner and director of the bureau of infectious disease and laboratory sciences.
“It is particularly critical that we make the move now to manage the testing of thousands of college and university students starting soon,” Cranston said in the statement.
It also includes enhanced stability and security of the DPH’s systems, he said.
The change will allow the state to increase the daily volume of test results processed from 25,000 to 100,000; incorporate an electronic quality assurance dashboard to monitor data flows and errors; and make “data report enhancements” possible, the statement said.
Due to the transition, data reported by the state Saturday could reflect lower numbers of tests, cases, and deaths, the statement said. Numbers released Saturday afternoon were last updated Friday at 5 p.m., instead of Saturday at 8 a.m., the statement said.
No dashboard report will be published Sunday, the statement said. The dashboard will resume its normal flow by Monday.
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According to data released Saturday by the state, as of Wednesday, the three-day average of confirmed COVID-19 deaths was 14, up from an average of 13 reported Tuesday.
The state reported more than 1.5 million people have been given molecular tests for the virus, including 8,301 new people tested as of Friday afternoon.
The seven-day average positive rate for the molecular tests was 1.1 percent as of Friday, the state said, down from 1.2 percent a day earlier.
Four hospitals were using surge capacity to treat COVID-19 patients as of Friday, according to the state, which was the same number reported Thursday.
And the three-day average number of hospitalized coronavirus patients was 336 as of Friday, down from 353 on Thursday.
John Hilliard can be reached at john.hilliard@globe.com.
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August 23, 2020 at 03:49AM
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New COVID-19 data Saturday reporting 20 deaths could be low due to IT upgrade, state says - The Boston Globe
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