Alabama’s Department of Public Health (ADPH) mistakenly added 11,792 new coronavirus cases to its tracker for the September 4 update.
Revised numbers, released at 11 a.m. Friday, show that the state is up an additional 688 cases from the previous day’s figures, bringing the total count to 119,289 confirmed cases statewide, rather than the initial 130,393 confirmed cases the tracker showed.
The ADPH told Newsweek that the error was due to a technical issue.
The correction shows that there are 11,104 probable cases. Probable cases indicate the number of patients who have had close contact with someone who is a confirmed case and show symptoms of the virus but have not received lab testing confirming the infection.
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Probable cases have been a point of confusion for many Alabamans over the past few weeks because the ADPH recently changed the definition to include antigen test results, a different diagnostic test subject to higher false negative rates.
The department also released confusing numbers on Wednesday when it reported only 86 new daily cases, the smallest increase since April. However, the ADPH announced on Twitter later that it had pulled the data later than usual, which meant that some of Wednesday’s numbers had been included in Tuesday’s update.
The data pulled yesterday included part of yesterday’s numbers. Even though the dashboard updated on time, we pulled the data later. This is why we have tabs 6 and 7 which provide daily totals.
Daily confirmed cases for 8/31: 937
Daily confirmed cases for 9/1: 464— Alabama Public Health (@ALPublicHealth) September 2, 2020
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The state department has confirmed 2,379 COVID-19 deaths and 51,156 presumed recoveries in Alabama. Hospitalizations in the state are down to 872 as of Thursday, which is 90 fewer than the day before.
The greatest one-day increase in confirmed cases is in Jefferson County, which reported 109 new cases on Friday, bringing the county’s total to 16,349 cases, the highest in Alabama. Jefferson County is also the most populous county in the state.
Last week, the University of Alabama said 1,200 students tested positive for the virus just two weeks into the new school year.
The surge in coronavirus cases pushed another college in the state to install new screening stations. Alabama State University set up stations in the campus’ high-traffic areas this week to scan students’ vital signs, including their temperature and heart rate, as well as to alert them if they are not social distancing.
Alabama has seen a rise in coronavirus cases that is much faster than in other states. In an analysis using data collected by The New York Times, Newsweek reported that Alabama saw the second greatest increase in new cases per capita for the week ending September 2, compared with the previous seven days.
The state was found to have a week-to-week change of 3,493 new cases per capita.
