The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control clarified on Wednesday that the 95 new cases of COVID-19 initially reported in Aiken County on October 14 were actually due to results of historical tests submitted to the department.
Historical figures on the DHEC website have been updated to show that there were 17 new cases of COVID-19 in Aiken County on October 14.
“We did not know, that day, that this large number of cases was due to results of historical tests that were submitted to DHEC,” said Laura Renwick, of DHEC, by email on Wednesday. “When it was determined that these were historical cases, we updated the information online to reflect this confirmed new information.”
The test results were sent by Augusta University Healthcare, said Renwick.
“This facility has been useful for working with DHEC,” said Renwick.
SC DHEC: COVID-19 peak in Aiken County not due to ‘mass historical reporting’
DHEC’s initial response to an investigation into the increase in cases suggested that the cases were not part of a historical report.
“We are not aware of a mass historical report for today (October 14) for Aiken County,” Renwick told Aiken Standard by email last week.
The cases covered a period of more than four months.
“These 95 cases covered a range of days from May 20 to October 10,” said Renwick by email on Wednesday morning. “We updated the information online so that these 95 cases are not all associated with October 14, but represented for the day that the result was relayed from the laboratory to the healthcare provider.”
DHEC confirmed 10 new cases of COVID-19 in Aiken County on Wednesday. Three probable cases and no deaths were also reported in the county on Wednesday. The data reported on Wednesday is for the date of October 20.
A total of 686 new cases of coronavirus were confirmed by DHEC across South Carolina on Wednesday. There were 11 confirmed deaths and a probable statewide death reported Wednesday.
The cases on Wednesday in Aiken County were in residents aged 4 to 81, with an average age of 44 years. Of the 13 cases, 53.8% were male and 46.2% female.
There were 5,787 test results reported to DHEC on Wednesday, with a positive percentage of 11.9%.