MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) – State public health departments have conducted some 4,856 tests for the novel coronavirus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But fewer than 20 tests have been run by the Alabama Department of Public Health.

Testing has varied across the country. In Florida, which has had 23 positive tests – in addition to the five Floridians infected outside the state – the stat has recorded 301 negative results and has another 147 pending. The state also is “monitoring” 353 people.

Mississippi, meanwhile, has recorded just 20 tests – all of them negative.

Rendi Murphree, director of the Bureau of Disease Surveillance at the Mobile County Health Department, says she understands why people think testing should be more widespread.

“It does seem like a low number, particularly considering all the hype we were seeing around the U.S.,” she said. “But remember right now, we’re trying to prioritize testing for only the people that are at the highest risk, and are sick, or the people that are the sickest, and we’re not sure why they’re sick.”

Test kits remain in short supply, and Murphree said all states are following the same guidelines – limiting tests to people who are experience symptoms of the virus and who have traveled recently to an area with a high number of infections.

In Alabama, bureaucracy also is colliding with the high state of alert that the coronavirus has caused. COVID-19 is not among the infectious diseases that are required to be reported to health authorities, and state Health Officer Scott Harris told reporters Tuesday that’s simply because it’s new.

“We have a process for amending that rule that allows us to make something notifiable and like all real processes it takes two or three months and public comments and, and the whole administrative rules process,” he said.

The department has issued an emergency rule to fix that temporarily while officials seek a permanent change.

Murphree acknowledged that the absence of confirmed cases does not guarantee that the virus is already in Alabama.

“It’s likely, and perhaps, we’re not detecting it because we’re not able to test everyone,” she said. “But we have a good public health system and a public health response in place. It was the public health system that identified the first cases and in Washington and in California.”

Commercial labs have begun to test for the virus. But under current rules, only those testing positive have to be reported. So, it is likely state officials never will know the total number of people tested but deemed virus-free.

Alabama state health officials said they would update their testing statistics on Friday.