Here’s Why State (NOT LOCAL) COVID Data Reporting is Lagging

Tuesday, the Washington State Department of Health released information as to why in many cases, COVID-19 case data is not being reported as often as expected or as often as they want to--sometimes lagging.

Officials released the following statement, which read in part:

• "The Washington Disease Reporting System (WDRS) is used to report notifiable conditions.
• Outside a pandemic, only positive results would be reported.
• WDRS is now tracking negative results for COVID-19. This volume is overwhelming the tool.
• We have worked with the vendor supporting WDRS to increase capacity.
• We are also investigating additional solutions, which may include:
  • A separate reporting tool for negative results (roughly 93% of the data at this time).
  • Automating deduplication work performed manually each day. One day last week, more than 2,000 duplicate results were removed to ensure accurate, reliable numbers.

DOH will share additional updates if this problem persists. We cannot provide an estimate for the next release of numbers, but are working diligently toward that goal."

Officals area hoping the new revisions will speed up reporting process and make it more timely.