North Carolina's health department reported 564 new coronavirus cases on Aug. 17, the lowest daily number since the end of May, marking the second consecutive week where testing numbers were skewed because of lab data issues, according to NBC affiliate WRAL.
A North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson told the network the department "did not receive one of the commercial lab's full testing data files in time for inclusion with [Monday's] numbers."
Over the past seven days, the state averaged about 1,200 new cases per day, down from the peak in mid-July of an average of more than 2,000 per day.
Earlier this month, the health department blamed LabCorp for an error that required it to remove data from more than 200,000 tests from its official COVID-19 test counts. The state said the error was with LabCorp's manual data submission dating back to April 24, and that the company added tests from out-of-state at-home test kits to North Carolina lab data by mistake. The adjustment did not affect the number of new positive cases or the percentage of positive tests in the state.
LabCorp said the reporting issue is fixed and did not affect any other states.