Florida health officials report more negative coronavirus tests, fewer pending results
Florida health officials on Friday reported 24 additional negative test results for novel coronavirus, the biggest increase in test results since the state started providing daily updates on the highly contagious respiratory illness this week.
The Florida Department of Health reported 55 negative test results late Friday morning, up from 31 on Thursday. The state also reported 51 pending results, which represents a decrease from the 69 pending results reported on Thursday. The number of positive cases did not change from Thursday, when the state reported that a Santa Rosa County person tested positive for COVID-19, the potentially fatal illness caused by the new strain of coronavirus spreading quickly on all continents but Antarctica.
Before Friday’s update, negative test results hadn’t budged much from the total of 24 reported on Tuesday. The 24-test jump in negative results came a day after state officials said they did not have the capacity to keep up with expanding federal guidelines on whom to test, which have been expanded to include anyone who physicians suspect might have the disease. As of the latest update, the state said it is monitoring 264 people for potential COVID-19 symptoms.
As of Friday, there were 240 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins University, which is tracking the cases globally.
Helen Aguirre Ferré, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ spokeswoman, said on Friday that COVID-19 “is a virus that is challenging the world.”
On Thursday, state officials said public health labs were still grappling with how to handle the molecular-level testing required to detect the new strain of coronavirus. Each test can take several hours and needs to be rerun if there are complications, but Ferré said the state was still in the 24-48 hour window to produce test results.
DeSantis said Thursday that he anticipated Florida’s testing capacity to expand significantly in the coming days. Under its current criteria, state health officials are only running tests on patients who meet two of the following three conditions:
▪ Travel to or from an area with widespread community transmission — Italy, China, South Korea and Japan — and showing symptoms of COVID-19: cough, shortness of breath and fever.
▪ Close contact with a confirmed COVID-19 case, with the same symptoms.
▪ Severe, acute lower respiratory illness and fever requiring hospitalization, and without an alternate diagnosis, like the flu.
DeSantis said another priority is to have testing available at healthcare facilities, which would shorten the turnaround on results and further expand capacity. The governor said he’s made Vice President Mike Pence aware of the need for local testing.
“Especially if we are in a situation where we have a surge of people that are showing up with symptoms, if we’re able to do local testing that would make a big, big difference,” DeSantis said.
This story was originally published March 6, 2020 at 1:07 PM.
