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Official: Map showing low COVID rates in Nebraska misleading

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OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska appears relatively safe on some national websites tracking the spread of COVID-19, but state health officials say those maps aren’t accurate.

The problem is that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been using different data for Nebraska since the state retired its website that reported virus figures daily.

Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman Olga Dack said the CDC used to rely on the state's daily dashboard for its data.

But Dack said officials recently discovered that the federal agency has been using the percentage of positive COVID-19 tests for Nebraska counties instead of the per capita case counts it uses for most other states.

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