16 March 2022

NSW Health advises that about 10,000 positive rapid antigen tests (RATs) registered with Service NSW by people between Sunday 13 March and Monday 14 March are included in today's numbers following a data processing issue.

These positive RATs from Sunday and Monday artificially inflate the cases being reported today for the 24 hours to 4pm yesterday (Tuesday).

There were 30,402 positive test results notified in the 24 hours to 4pm yesterday. This includes 22,748 positive RATs, with about 10,000 of those from Sunday and Monday.

There were 7,654 positive PCR results returned from a total of 48,987 PCR tests. PCR tests results were not affected by the data processing issue.

The data processing issue, which has now been resolved, only affected reporting of cases. All of these cases were still connected to clinical care as per normal processes with positive COVID-19 results.

DateRATs –reported RATs
Estimate of actual 		PCR
(unchanged) 		Total tests
reported		 Total tests
Estimate of actual
Sunday 13 March 4,788 8,788*4,1238,911 12,911
Monday 14 March 6,016 12,016*4,67310,689 16,689
Tuesday 15 March 22,748 12,748*7,65430,402 20,402

*Note this table has been calculated by re-allocating 10,000 tests (the approximate number of affected tests) from Tuesday 15 March in a 60/40 split across the previous two days, consistent with previous patterns of positive RAT uploads for these days.

NSW Health will issue its full daily COVID-19 update media release at 11am.