There will be no update on the number of COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts Sunday as the Department of Public Health moves its data system from a DPH server to the Amazon Web Services cloud, Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders said Thursday.
"Moving to the cloud will help handle dramatic increases in anticipated testing volume, as well as other data, which is particularly important now as we anticipate rapid increase in COVID testing volumes," she said.
On Friday night, the pipeline through which labs report COVID-19 test results to DPH will be shut down to facilitate the shift. Because of that, Sudders said daily update DPH publishes Saturday "may suggest lower testing numbers." That report included 109 new confirmed coronavirus cases and 20 new deaths, with the positive test rate for COVID-19 down to a new low of to 1.1%.
DPH will not publish a daily report Sunday, but Monday's update "will include all the lab results from the weekend." During the transfer to the cloud, all of the existing data in DPH's system "will be accessible by DPH epidemiologists and local public health departments," though no new data will be added while the migration is underway.
