LOS ANGELES, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from COVID-19 in the U.S. state of California grew to 10,011 on Friday, according to the newest figure updated by the state's Department of Public Health.

With a population of around 40 million, the country's most populous state saw its deaths from COVID-19 rise by 142 to reach 10,011 over the past 24 hours, the department said in its daily report.

The number makes it the U.S. state with the third-highest number of deaths since the beginning of the pandemic, followed by New York with more than 32,000 deaths, and New Jersey with nearly 16,000 deaths.

Meanwhile, confirmed COVID-19 cases in the state increased by 8,436 to reach 538,416. Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly disclosed that a glitch has led to a backlog of between 250,000 and 300,000 unprocessed health records in California, many of them COVID-19 test results.

But Ghaly insisted that the overall COVID-19 trends in the state remained consistent, since not all of the logged records are confirmed infection cases and some may be duplicates.

There have been 8,596,882 tests conducted in California, which represent an increase of 96,419 over the prior 24-hour reporting period.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles County recorded 48 more deaths on Friday, taking the death toll in the country's most populous county with a population of over 10 million to 4,869.