Missouri agency pledges to end flawed virus data reporting

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP)

Missouri's health director says the state has been lumping together different coronavirus test results in a way that can be misleading.

Health department Director Randall Williams on Tuesday said the state no longer will combine virus tests and antibody tests.

Public health experts and Williams himself have said those tests should be separated. That's because mixing them makes it difficult to understand how the virus is spreading and can give the false impression that the rate of positive test results is declining.

Williams had said the state wasn't combining the data. He now says he wasn't aware that was happening.