Iowa tries to fix data error that backdated COVID-19 results

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A spokesman for Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds says that the state is correcting a major flaw in its coronavirus data that backdated thousands of positive and negative test results. 

Reynolds spokesman Pat Garrett said that the state’s data system had been erroneously recording the results of people who were tested on multiple occasions. He said that an individual’s most recent result, whether positive or negative, was “unintentionally attributed to the date of their first test.”

That means thousands of recent results were being recorded in the system as having occurred in March, April, May and June.