The number of new COVID-19 cases has gone up by double digits over the past two days in Polk County and increased across the state as a backlog of reporting is caught up, according to a release from state officials on Wednesday.

The midweek increase of new positives was by 11, and the afternoon report added another 24 cases of COVID-19 reported by the Georgia Department of Public Health on the afternoon, putting the total since tracking began at 1,453 reported since March 3.

COVID-19 also hospitalized another patient locally on Wednesday, pushing that number up to 98 overall and the third person admitted this week. One positive indicator is that COVID-19 deaths remained flat locally for more than two weeks in Polk County, still at 17.

With the positive rate still at 13.8%, Polk County’s total number of tests reported by the state now sits at 10,528.

Statewide, health officials stated in a release on Wednesday that the process of bringing on “many new facilities” from around Georgia into the electronic laboratory reporting (ELR) system to provide “more timely and efficient reporting of COVID-19 test results” and therefore provide a more accurate day-to-day picture of how the virus is progressing.

“During the onboarding process, there may be days where the number of daily positive tests and positivity rates will be artificially inflated. This is due to a backlog of tests now being reported through ELR all at once, the majority of results previously reported by the provider or laboratory through other means,” the state’s release reported. “DPH’s data quality team reviews cases and positive test results daily to ensure there is no duplication in reporting, however, the process takes longer when we receive a large number of positive test results at one time – which are in addition to the regularly reported daily number of positive test results we receive from facilities statewide.”

One area the DPH is making clear is that when a confirmed case is reported, they are only being counted once in the system.

“Confirmed cases of COVID-19 are specific to individuals. People with a positive test often get retested and may test positive multiple times. These repeat positive tests will be counted as new positive tests, but they will not be reported as new cases,” the release stated.

Statewide, the number of new positives rose by 1,452 on the day, bringing the total to 311,046 total cases in Georgia. The positive rate out of more than 3 million tests conducted since tracking began stands at 10.3%. Georgia’s number of new hospitalizations over the past day rose by 154 patients overall, and the number of deaths stood at 52 on the day.

That brought the total number of hospitalizations to 27,903 overall, and the number of people lost to the virus or complications worsened by its symptoms to 6,822.

Georgia’s overall number of people treated in Intensive Care Units was at 5,120 on the day, marking a new uptick in the number of people being moved to intensive care after a slowdown over the past week.

Nationwide, some 6,916,292 people have now tested positive for COVID-19, and 201,411 have been recorded.