Official: California fixed glitch that backlogged COVID data

 A top California health official says a technical glitch that caused a lag in collecting coronavirus test information has been fixed, but it could take up to 48 hours to get the data updated.

Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said Friday that up to 300,000 records might have been backlogged — but not all of them are coronavirus cases and some may be duplicates.

Ghaly said the problem began with a computer server outage in late July.

He said in one case, a major lab didn’t get any information into the state system for five straight days.

Despite the lag in numbers, Ghaly said officials believe overall COVID-19 trends remain consistent.

The state has built a redundant system to make sure the problem doesn’t happen again.