KHN Morning Briefing Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations.

COVID-19 Latest News On The Coronavirus Outbreak – “Several states are reporting only positive COVID-19 test results from private labs, a practice that paints a misleading picture of how fast the disease is spreading. Maryland, Ohio and others are posting the numbers of new positive tests and deaths, for instance, but don’t report the negative results, which would help show how many people were tested overall. “This matters because it gives you a false sense of what is going on in a particular location,” said Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. He said states should be required to report both positive and negative results for review by public health experts. “They should all be pulled together,” Topol said. “It should be automatic.”

Many states display a more comprehensive picture of their pandemic data, including the total numbers of tests run and those yielding negative results. The COVID Tracking Project, a private effort to collect testing information nationwide, has found at least nine states that have reported complete results only from state labs, or are missing some reports on negative results…”