Coronavirus Latest: Massachusetts Reports 270 New Cases, 16 Deaths

BOSTON (CBS) - The Massachusetts Department of Public Health reported 270 new confirmed coronavirus cases and 16 deaths in the state on Thursday. The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Massachusetts is now 107,683 while the total number of deaths is 8,265.

There were 16,133 new tests reported in the last 24 hours. A total of 1,079,288 people in Massachusetts have now been tested for coronavirus.

As of Thursday, there are 351 people currently hospitalized for a coronavirus-related illness, a decrease of 181 from Wednesday. There are 59 patients currently in intensive care.

The DPH said due to new federal reporting requirements, "data accuracy and integrity issues" were experienced in Thursday's report about hospitalizations.

"Given the importance of this particular metric, the state proactively validated the reporting of COVID-19 hospitalizations with nearly all acute care hospitals," the DPH said in Thursday's report, which was released about five hours later than normal. "Hospitals indicated that the decrease was partially driven by a more accurate accounting of which patients should be reported as "suspected" COVID patients."

There were also 57 new probable cases reported Tuesday for a total of 6,964 probable cases in the state.

Probable cases are people who were not given a standard test but tested positive for the antibody and had COVID-19 symptoms or have not been given any type of test but had COVID-19 symptoms and were exposed to a known positive case. Probable cases also include individuals whose death certificate says coronavirus even though they were not tested.

The average age of COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts is 51. The average age of deaths in COVID-19 cases is 82.