In reversal, Tennessee officials will request private labs to share negative coronavirus test figures

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Tennessee health offiicals will now ask private labs to release information about the numbers of people tested for coronavirus in private labs — and those whose tests come back negative.

Tennessee each day releases the overall number of people tested in the state's public laboratories, as well as the numbers who test negative and positive. Current regulations only require reporting of positive results from private labs, where most of the tests are now being handled.

Pressed on the issue earlier this week, Gov. Bill Lee argued releasing a fuller picture of the testing wouldn't provide any "clearer" information.

"Bad data is not helpful," he said Wednesday at a health briefing at the state Capitol.

The negative testing figures are not "particularly helpful," Lee said. The focus remains on tracking those who have it and getting in touch with people they may have come in contact with to stop spread.

But on Thursday, Lee said the state has now been asked by federal officials to move toward requesting additional information from private labs. The state will begin to report those numbers in the next few days, he said.

In Nashville, Metro Health Department spokesperson Brian Todd told The Tennessean the city has already been receiving negative figures from private labs by email, but is not releasing it at this time.

"Right now our focus is to investigate the positive cases in an effort to stop the spread of the illness," he said.

Experts say more reporting would be significant. The state will also have to start reporting private testing volumes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention if it wants to receive funding for COVID-19 testing and paid emergency leave, as part of the new federal relief package passed Wednesday.

More: Where to get tested for coronavirus in Tennessee — and how to know if you need to

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On Thursday, the number of positive cases in Tennessee reached three digits with 154 positive cases — up from 98 the day before. Of that, 33 positive cases come from 497 test done so far by the state. The other 121 positive cases come from an unknown number of private testing.

The update includes an increase in 47 positive cases from private labs reported in the past 24 hours, and an increase of nine positive cases from the state lab, out of 128 in state tests reported in the same period.

Metro health officials sharing more updated numbers Friday morning, said there are 110 confirmed cases in Nashville. They weren't able to answer how many tests that was out of, saying testing is being done in multiple places. Vanderbilt University Medical Center alone, has tested over 3,000 individuals, officials said.

The state data so far shows 6.6% of state tests, tested positives, its unknown if the rate is observed higher or lower in private labs because the discrepancies in reporting.

Vanderbilt University’s Dr. William Schaffner, an internationally renowned infectious disease specialist and public health expert, said the information would be "truly helpful" and should not be difficult for labs to provide that.

“I think we would all like to know, including my friends at the Tennessee Department of Health. The intensity of testing would be a useful piece of information to have and it wouldn’t violate anyone’s privacy," Schaffner told The Tennessean.

Tennessee is not alone on this position, with reporting standards varying widely in the Untied States with testing capacity ranging state to state. While all provide positive case reports, many do not provide negative or pending case figures.

This makes it difficult to make direct comparisons of data between states and make conclusions on growth without knowing the testing intensity of a particular region.

"It's like looking at apples, oranges and kumquats. We know they're all fruits but they're all kind of different," Schaffner said.

Early on the messaging at the national level had been a "walk on the sunny side of the street," he said. Which has made it difficult because at the front lines of the virus, it "hasn't been so sunny." It's resulted in the country not testing nearly as comprehensively as other countries.

Tennessee Hospital Association President Dr. Wendy Long said Wednesday there is no backlog to testing in the state.

To be sure, the threshold for private providers to ask for a test from private labs, could vary lab to lab. But health officials also say there are guidelines given to health care providers to ensure some standardization of who gets tested, or not.

Lee said Wednesday that requiring them to provide that information would mean an additional step during this crucial time and that private laboratories aren't "usually used to that."

"They do tests all the time and they only present data when they have a positive test. So that's what we're doing right now," Lee said.

An official at the Metro Department of Health told The Tennessean earlier this week that epidemiologists have not yet indicated that they need the negative information, adding the call for its release has come largely from journalists reporting on the virus.

Ultimately, the official said, the state licenses labs across the state and has the authority to change requirements.

Multiple private labs told The Tennessean they were reporting information based on state guidelines.

As officials are still "ginning" up a process that will become more defined in the next few weeks, Schaffner recommends experts and people alike, not to over interrupt available data

Epidemiologists often deal with "dirty data." It's a matter of looking at it with "clean mind," he said, invoking the late-epidemiologist Geoffrey Rose.

Yihyun Jeong covers politics in Nashville for USA TODAY NETWORK - TENNESSEE. Reach her at yjeong@tennessean.com and follow her on Twitter @yihyun_jeong.