COLUMBUS, Ohio (WDTN) – Beginning Friday, January 14, The Ohio daily COVID-19 case count will be artificially inflated for several days while ODH works to clear a backlog caused by antiquated systems.
According to a release by the ODH, the processing system was enhanced on Thursday, January 13, enabling the backlog to clear and helping the ODH to better keep up with the high volume of positive test results.
“As COVID-19 cases have reached all-time highs, driven largely by the highly contagious Omicron variant, the system reached its processing capacity, resulting in a multiple-day backlog of tens of thousands of results,” ODH said in the release. “In addition, there are some positive test results that involve a further manual review by state epidemiologists.”
ODH said that it has discovered the strain of high user demand on older systems throughout the pandemic, and it continues to find ways to enhance real-time data analysis.