A glitch in Iowa’s COVID-19 tracking system is being blamed for skewing recent disease data. Washington County Public Health Director Danielle Pettit-Majewski explained the situation at Tuesday’s Washington County Board of Supervisors meeting, “What they are showing is that somebody who tested negative in March and then that same person who tested positive in August, that positive case is being reflected back in March. And so, then we’re not getting an accurate disease burden in our percent positivity for our rolling previous 14 days. So, my understanding is that the Iowa Department of Public Health is working on fixing that data glitch so that we have an accurate representation of disease burden.”

She said in addition, antigen COVID-19 tests like those being used locally aren’t reflected on the state’s website – both negative and positive tests, “Now, I want to go back and just mention the antigen test. So, that is a test that is being done at the hospital. It is reportable to the state. But they are not, those tests, the positives and the negatives, are not showing up in our numbers. We have been working with the state to get that reflected so that we have an accurate picture of disease burden in the county. So that we’re getting that accurate percent positivity as we look at going back to school. Because that’s going to be the metric that we’re looking at, so we want to make sure that we have all of that data presented accurately.”

According to the Iowa Department of Public Health coronavirus website on Tuesday, the 14-day positive rate for Washington County was 7.5%. Henry County’s rate was 12.4%, Keokuk County was 8.9%, Johnson County was 7%, Jefferson County was 4.5%, Iowa County was 3.7%, and Louisa County’s 14-day rolling positive rate was less than one percent. When a county is at 15% or higher, school districts within that county may request online-only education for up to two weeks.