The announcement came after data on the state's coronavirus surveillance page appeared to show a dramatic one-day increase in test results, from 90,843 on Thursday to 105,648 on Friday.

Alena Yarmosky, a spokeswoman for Gov. Ralph Northam, said that roughly 5,800 of those results were new tests — a record for the state. But the other roughly 9,000 were older tests that the state retroactively included in its cumulative daily results.

Health Commissioner Dr. Norman Oliver said the old methodology counted the total number of people tested rather than the total number of tests conducted. Previously, if a single patient was tested four different times over the course of the illness, VDH reported that as one result.

"What we're doing now is, we're counting all four tests," he said. "That's the difference."