How are North Carolina's daily COVID-19 totals calculated?

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) — News 13's investigative team is working to answer your questions about the coronavirus pandemic and its impacts on Western North Carolina.

One viewer wants to know how daily totals in North Carolina are calculated?

"Do you take the lab confirmed COVID-19 cases and subtract the recovery cases to get the total people that are infected daily?" the viewer asked News 13’s I-Team Coronavirus Help Desk.

REPORTING COVID-19 TOTALS: PUBLIC HEALTH OFFICIALS CALL THE SITUATION 'FLUID'

North Carolina only updates the recovery numbers once a week -- before 4 p.m. each Monday. According to NC Department of Health and Human Services, unfortunately, you can't just do the math because not all labs are reporting negative cases, which may give you an inaccurate total.

The state does calculate the daily cases on the state's dashboard, based on cases that were tested and returned positive for that given day. So, that's cases that were reported back to be positive on say, Aug. 3, 2020. It's not cases that were technically tested on Aug. 3, 2020, because the results can take several days to return.

WHY ARE THE STATE AND THE COUNTY REPORTING DIFFERENT COVID-19 NUMBERS?

These are cases coming from the NC State Laboratory of Public Health, reporting hospitals, and commercial labs. It’s not a complete count for the day since those numbers are updated in the morning and reported around noon on the state’s dashboard, but it is what those labs have compiled and are reporting for say Monday, Aug. 3, 2020. For that Monday, North Carolina reported 1,313 positive COVID-19 tests that were returned by those labs on that day. The state also cautions that these are preliminary numbers and could change. You can find that link to daily count, HERE, along with current hospitalizations and daily tests. Hover over the line in the charts to see the day to day numbers.

Have a question you want the I-team to answer? Send those questions to Iteam@wlos.com. News 13's Jennifer Emert, Lauren Brigman, and Karen Zatkulak will work to get an answer for you.