REPORT: Texas Isn’t Counting All COVID+ Test Results

The Houston Chronicle reports:

The government’s official data on the coronavirus outbreak is startling: More than 4.6 million cases in the U.S. More than 440,000 in Texas. More than 70,000 in Harris County. But those numbers don’t include all positive COVID-19 patients.

Texas, unlike 27 other states, excludes the results of increasingly popular, rapid COVID-19 tests from the numbers it reports publicly — obscuring the scope of the pandemic, records and interviews show. The antigen tests are used in doctor’s offices, hospitals and stand-alone clinics and deliver results in less than 30 minutes.

But conflicting guidance from the Texas Department of State Health Services created confusion among local health departments about what test results to report. A reliance on faxed test results has created a paper backlog that makes it impossible for the state to do its own tally.

Thousands of Texans are getting rapid-result COVID-19 tests. The state isn’t counting them. https://t.co/poxc7LXnkh

— Houston Chronicle (@HoustonChron) August 2, 2020