https://dcist.com/story/21/05/11/dc-low-covid-numbers-due-to-reporting-error/



Just one day after D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser cited the city’s plummeting case counts in her decision to end to most capacity limits in the coming weeks, DC Health said those case counts were actually incorrect.

On Tuesday, the city’s daily coronavirus update came with the news that DC Health identified “a backlog of cases from the past 3-4 days.” According to the health agency, some of the missed cases are reported in today’s daily tally of 87 new positive cases, and more will be reported tomorrow. The error was due to an IT issue, which has since been resolved.

On Saturday, May 8 the city reported only 28 new cases, and on Sunday, that number dropped to 16. On Monday, the day Bowser announced that the city would lift nearly all of its coronavirus-related restrictions later this month, only 15 cases were reported.

The low — and now incorrect – numbers brought the city’s average daily case rate, a key metric that guides reopening decisions, down to 5.9 per 100,000 residents as of May 9. (The average daily case rate lags a few days behind each daily case count.) The goal is to get that number below 5.0, which would indicate minimal community spread.