York Region Public Health removes hospitalization data from online reporting following online firestorm

New provincial guidelines lead to confusion over number of patients in local hospitals

Yorkregion.com
April 23, 2021

Sometimes, too much information is simply too much information in this confusing and volatile pandemic world.

Take, for example, the controversy that blew up overnight on social media over York Region hospitalization data.

On Apr. 21, the region updated how it reports COVID-19 cases on its dashboard, following "best practices"  guidance from the province.

Previously, cases were reported as resolved at 24 days, but that was changed to resolved at 10 days, resulting in a large drop in active cases and active hospitalizations reported.

In a media statement released that evening, the region’s spokesperson, Patrick Casey, said the change was in keeping with guidance from the Ontario Ministry of Health.

Ryan Imgrund, a York Region biostatistician and high-school teacher who has been vocal in his criticism of regional medical officer of health Dr. Karim Kurji, called it "a despicable data manipulation" -- and his tweet set off a Twitterstorm.

Imgrund questioned why data from the region showed just 28 hospitalizations while hospital data indicated 268.

When Stouffville Mayor Ian Lovatt waded into the discussion with an attempt to clarify, he found himself criticized, too, and questioned for being "complicit in falsifying York Region public health data".

That Twitter "pile on" wasn’t the reason, Lovatt said, but he later asked Kurji to help clear up the confusion at the April 22 regional council meeting.

"Hospitalization is a very difficult area to be able to relay properly," the region’s top doctor said. "There will always be differences in opinion with respect to how you assemble hospitalization data.

"Our emphasis has been on York Region residents being hospitalized in following provincial guidance with respect to whether these individuals are infectious or not."

Provincial guidance on data reporting was changed, he said, to reflect that people who have had COVID for more than 10 days, or are in ICU for more than 20 days, are no longer regarded as being infectious.

Hospitalization data is complex and dynamic -- a hospital can go from having just one COVID-19 admission one day, to 15 admissions the next, for example, he said.

Making things even more complicated, there are York Region residents in York Region hospitals and in hospitals outside the region, and many patients in York Region hospitals who come from outside the region, leaving all hospital capacities "stretched", he added.

That all adds up to a lot of confusion, Lovatt said.

"People are looking to York Region Public Health as the voice of public health," he said. "I think the responsibility is on us to represent the data the best we can to the community."

Otherwise, he said, it can leave it open to "interpretation and other narratives … where we can find ourselves in the crosshairs."

Georgina Mayor Margaret Quirk agreed.

"It is confusing to the average resident who’s just trying to follow on our dashboard."

Kurji said every health unit in the province is likely following the new reporting guidance, but many do not report hospitalizations at all.

"We, as you know, have probably one of the best dashboards in the province, but that means a lot more effort has to go in to make sure that we’re accurately reflecting the numbers.

"We are very focused just now on getting the outbreak under control and our resources are extremely needed for contact management and outbreak control.

"One alternative is that we do, like other jurisdictions, and not report hospitalizations at all … We will use that data internally, but not putting it out if it’s causing that much confusion may be a better route to take, and people who are interested in hospitalization data can approach the individual hospital.

"I would rather concentrate our efforts on controlling the outbreak."

As a result, public health removed hospitalization data from the following tabs in its dashboard:

• Case Counts and Epi Curve;

• Case Demographics;

• Pandemic Tracker; and

• Severity and Resolution.

"Previously, hospitalization data reflected only the total number of York Region residents hospitalized due to COVID-19, and did not take into account the total number of individuals, including non-residents, who may be hospitalized due to COVID-19 in hospitals in York Region," public health said.