Submitted by the Washington State Department of Health.

The Washington State Department of Health announced 6,972 new cases of COVID-19 on Dec. 8, a number that reflects both a backlog of COVID-19 positive lab test results received over the weekend and approximately 1,800 duplicates that have not yet been resolved.

DOH has caught up with processing most of the backlog in positive COVID-19 test results created by temporary system slowdowns last week. Those slowdowns occurred as a result of upgrading servers. The high number of new cases reported today partially reflects the backlog created by these delays.

We estimate there are up to 1,800 duplicate cases in today’s total case counts. These duplicates will be removed from the dataset in the future as we catch up on our deduplication process.

The department resumed reporting negative COVID-19 test results on Dec. 4, after a temporary pause that began on Nov. 21. However, not all negative test results from Nov. 21 through today, Dec. 7, have been processed yet. We are still working to process these negative lab results and fill in this data retroactively. Until these negative lab results are inputted into our system, the graphs in our dashboard that show the total number of tests performed and test positivity will not have complete data.

As always, the Epidemiologic Curves tab of the COVID-19 data dashboard is the most accurate representation of recent disease activity, since it organizes cases based on the date closest to when transmission actually occurred. Like the rest of the dashboard, this tab is updated daily as new cases are identified and duplicates are resolved.