PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — The Department of Health in Washington issued a statement Tuesday stating its tool for tracking results has been overwhelmed with COVID-19 tests.

As a result, the backlog in results has delayed the report of new cases.

The agency uses the Washington Disease Reporting System (WDRS) for recording and reporting data pertaining to tests. Outside of a pandemic, the WDRS only reports positive results, according to state officials. Because the COVID-19 outbreak has been deemed a pandemic, the tool is now forced to track negative results as well.

“We have worked with the vendor supporting WDRS to increase capacity,” DOH said in a statement issued Tuesday. “We are also investigating additional solutions [including] a separate reporting tool for negative results (roughly 93% of the data at this time).”

DOH added that it may automate deduplication work that is typically done manually.

The agency said it could not provide an estimate for the next release of numbers.