Waterloo Public Health’s total number of coronavirus tests jumped by more than 40,000 on Tuesday from Friday’s previously announced total.
Public health updates the numbers twice weekly (Tuesdays and Fridays) with the total now sitting at 131,533, which is 43,957 more than Friday.
The region’s top medical officer says Tuesday’s jump is connected to a change in Waterloo Public Health’s collection system.
“We are now collecting the testing data from a provincial database called OLIS (Ontario Laboratories Information System), which captures both the testing from our local testing centres, as well as test counts of enhanced surveillance,” Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang said.
“That’s the regular testing at long-term care and retirement homes. This data source gives a more complete picture of testing across our region.”
She says Waterloo Public Health had not made the switch earlier because there OLIS was missing data from certain labs. which had initially left it reporting a lower total number of tests.
The change leaves the number of positive COVID-19 tests on Tuesday at 1.3 per cent, while they were at 1.9 per cent on Friday.
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