4 labs have accused SC health officials of inaccurately portraying the tests they processed.

SC Department of Health and Environmental Control records for 1 lab show it submitted fewer than 4,000 tests. Only 33 were reported negative as uninfected.

3,967 were reported positive as virus infected.

These were among key findings of an investigation by WYFF-TV in Greenville.

According to a lab executive, DHEC’s numbers do not include tens of thousands of test results.

These were 4,627 positive and 32,859 negative - about 75% negative as uninfected.

Adding the unaccountedresults from a single lab would drop the percent positive by 1-10th of a percent.

The executive said DHEC told them to only submit positive results. Another executive from a different lab echoed that.

The records DHEC provided WYFF list his lab as having 1,139 positive tests out of 1,161 tests performed – 98.1% positive.

He said positive results from tests his lab did in the state was at 9% or fewer each month since May.

That’s nearly a 90% difference from the figure in the DHEC report. It also means that 91% of the actual unreported tests were negative - or from uninfected people.

DHEC records show Bon Secours St. Francis hospital in Greenville has reported 1,477 positive test results and 36 negative results.

“At Bon Secours St. Francis, we only report positive test results,” said spokesperson Jennifer Robinson.

“Our chief clinical officer can confirm our positivity rates are dramatically lower than those currently shown by the DHEC.”

WYFF found 4 more instances where a lab submitted more than 1,000 positive results and fewer than 100 negative results for that lab were entered.

WYFF reported a DHEC spokeswoman told them that private labs were not required to report negative results in early March.

But by March 26, DHEC told labs to begin providing negative results as well, Laura Renwick said.

DHEC considers covid-19 an urgently reportable condition. That means labs are required to report results within 24 hours of the results being available.

The DHEC data shows more than half of all test results came through Lab Corp or DHEC’s own lab.

The positive rate for those 2 entities is 10.5%.

The data, while mostly separated by company, also includes an “other” section.

It accounts for nearly 36,000 tests, more than 15,000 of them positive.

DHEC reports 15.6% of all tests statewide were positive as of Aug. 26. That means 84.4% of them were negative – or uninfected.