Virginia Health Officials Retract Spokesman’s Claim State is Double Counting Cases

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The Virginia Department of Health retracted a spokesman’s claim that the state was double-counting patients infected by the coronavirus when they received more than one positive test result, telling Mediaite on Friday the spokesman was “incorrect.”

“Regardless of how many times a person tests positive, they will only be counted as a case once,” a public information officer at the department said in a statement to Mediaite.

The department was responding to a Monday report that quoted Joe Macenka, a spokesman for Virginia’s coronavirus response and for the Division of Capitol Police, saying the state would count patients more than once if they tested positive on multiple days.

“If a person is tested on different days, those tests are counted as separate,” Macenka had said. “If [a Virginia resident] tested Monday and Tuesday and both are positive, that’s two positives.”

The department on Friday insisted that information was inaccurate, telling Mediaite, “The statement from Joe Macenka is incorrect. We are counting testing encounters to better describe Virginia’s capacity to test for SARS-CoV-2, but we will only count an individual as a case once.”

The clarification came as the manner in which coronavirus victims are counted becomes more contentious around the country. Skeptics, particularly on the right, believe some of the numbers are being inflated, particularly when it comes to counting coronavirus-related deaths. Others point out that a lack of widespread testing means the total number of those infected has almost certainly been underreported.

“The number of cases Virginia has on record is an underrepresentation of the true burden for several reasons,” Julie Grimes, a spokesperson for the health department, told Mediaite. “A test might not be available for the infected person… Studies have identified infections in people who never develop symptoms. If someone gets infected and recovers on their own, then public health may never find out about the case.”

The department said this month that it would transition to reporting the number of unique tests administered rather than the number of unique people who have been tested, raising the question of whether it was counting patients more than once and threatening to exacerbate the counting controversy.

“We know individual people, especially health care workers and those in high-risk settings, may be tested more than once over time,” Grimes said. “We believe these data to be a better representation of SARS-CoV-2 testing.”

The department’s online dashboard indicated the state suffered 22,342 “total cases” of the virus as of May 8, while it had administered 143,220 tests to 128,877 unique patients. A stay-at-home order imposed by Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam is scheduled to stay in effect until June 10.