Florida reported a record-breaking 15,300 new coronavirus cases last week — the single largest number of positive cases in one day since the coronavirus pandemic first reached the United States. This report led many to believe that Florida had lost control of COVID-19 and that its leaders needed to reintroduce restrictions to prevent further spread. But a closer look at the numbers suggests that Florida’s situation might not be as dire as it seems.

One hospital, Orlando Health, disputed the department’s numbers and said that its positivity rate was 9.4%, not 98%, as the department’s report had stated. Another hospital, Orlando Veteran’s Medical Center, said its positivity rate was 6%, but the department logged it as 76%. And at least one Florida doctor, Dr. Jon Ward, has questioned the accuracy of Florida’s numbers for the same reasons.

“We’ve got what’s called a denominator problem — the denominator is the number of negative cases, or negative tests, or total tests, and the numerator is positive tests,” Ward said last week. “I looked at it, and [PanCare] showed 280 positives and zero negatives, and that just came up really fishy because I knew a lot of people who had gone to PanCare and tested negative.”

Moreover, the sharp uptick in positive cases was very likely the result of Florida’s massive testing backlog. A report by the Tampa Bay Times found that half of the new cases the state reported last week were linked to tests performed by one company: GENETWORx, a testing lab based in Virginia that has already been tied to multiple complaints about ongoing delays. It seems GENETWORx released all of its delayed results on one day, which helps explain Florida’s massive one-day spike.