Florida's health department said a computer 'error' made it say a third of children taking the coronavirus test were positive
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Kelly McLaughlin,Eleanor Goldberg Fox
Jul 28, 2020, 04:37 IST
A health care worker carries a stack of clipboards at a COVID-19 testing site sponsored by Community Heath of South Florida at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Clinica Campesina Health Center, during the coronavirus pandemic, Monday, July 6, 2020, in Homestead, Florida.AP Photo/Lynne Sladky
Health officials in Florida have retracted data that was released earlier this month saying 31% of kids tested for coronavirus were positive.
The average positivity rate for COVID-19 among all ages in Floridais about 12.5%.
Officials said that a "subset of negative pediatric test results were unintentionally excluded from the pediatric report."
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The Florida Health Department has retracted data saying nearly a third of children tested for COVID-19 in the state had tested positive for the virus, blaming it on a "computer programming error."
Health officials had released data the week of July 13 that said 54,022 people under 18 years old have been tested for COVID-19 in Florida, and that 16,797 kids — or roughly 31% — tested positive.
"It was a computer programming error specifically linked to the production of the pediatric data report," Florida's Health Department told the Sun-Sentinel. "As a result, a subset of negative pediatric test results were unintentionally excluded from the pediatric report."
Florida has tested more than 3.4 million people for COVID-19 in total, and state data shows that the average positivity rate among all ages is about 12.5%.
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When the inflated data was released earlier in July, infectious disease experts told Insider that the number of children who have tested positive for the coronavirus in Florida was inarguably high compared to what's been reported in other areas of the country. A hospital system in Charlotte, North Carolina, for example, reported a 13% positive rate in children tested by their system in early July, which at the time was around the same as the region's overall positive test rate.
The Florida figures also complicated research into whether children are, in fact, less susceptible to contracting the virus, which had been previously posited in numerous studies across several countries.
"That's a really high number," Dr. William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine and Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, told Insider at the time. "It's a concern that translates into curiosity. We need an elaborate understanding of what that number means."
A major question mark at this time — with regard to children and the coronavirus — is whether or not young people who have COVID-19 spread the disease with ease. It's a pressing concern as states decide if — and how — to safely reopen schools in the fall.
"How penetrate is this virus is in our hot spots to our children?" Dr. Schaffner said. "This is something we don't know yet. We don't have a good handle on this."
This story has been updated to include information on the Florida Health Department's decision to retract the data regarding kids and COVID-19. The first version of this article was written before Florida said the data was incorrect.
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