Was there ‘data manipulation’ on York Region’s COVID-19 dashboard?

'This is the most outrageous thing that I had seen ... since this pandemic started,' Ryan Imgrund says

Yorkregion.com
May 5, 2021
Dina Al-Shibeeb

A debate has ensued on whether there is “data manipulating” taking place on York Region’s COVID-19 dashboard.

Keswick's Ryan Imgrund, a biostatistician, who works with the Ottawa and Peel health units, has been a fierce critic of York Region’s top medical officer Dr. Karim Kurji.

On April 21, Imgrund, who has at least 62,000 Twitter followers unleashed a “Twitterstorm” after he pilloried York Region Public Health for putting a far-slimmer figure of hospitalizations. This figure counts only the region’s residents, leaving out the bigger number of 268 amidst a patient-sharing program Ontario hospitals have to avoid bottlenecks.

The bigger number, however, can be easily calculated.

“It takes me about one minute to pull it up on three different (hospital) websites that are publicly available, and you literally add up the numbers,” Imgrund said.

Imgrund explained how Southlake’s website at the time had 58 hospitalizations, Mackenzie Health 74, Markham Stouffville 49, and Cortellucci, the only hospital in Ontario focusing on COVID-19 patients, had 87.

 A day after of the Twitterstorm, in which Whitchurch-Stouffville Mayor Iain Lovatt engaged, the category for hospitalization was removed altogether on the dashboard, a move rejected by Imgrund.

During a regional council meeting, Dr. Kurji explained how hospitalization is a “very difficult area to be able to relay on properly.”

But Imgrund disagrees.

“This is the most outrageous thing that I had seen any government or any public health unit do since this pandemic started,” he added.  “The actual number of individuals in York Region hospitals because of COVID-19 is what we need to hear.”

Lovatt told York Region Media that he doesn’t agree with Imgrund’s claim that there is manipulation.

“No I don’t see this as manipulative nor was there political interference in its reporting,” Lovatt said. “It’s a narrowed data set.”

“There’s no disputing 268 COVID-19 hospitalizations in York Region. To just report everyone in the hospitals provides no context for York Region community spread,” he further explained.

However, he is also curious about the bigger number.

“Candidly, I’m interested in how the virus is moving through our community and of course, how it's impacting our local hospital capacities.”

“We need both data points,” he acknowledged.

York Region corporate communications director Patrick Casey explained how the three local hospitals “report their own data for hospitalized cases to the Ministry of Health, including ICU patients.”

“For the most up-to-date hospital data, including all individuals hospitalized at each site, visit the hospital websites directly,” Casey added.

WHAT ARE THE ACTIVE CASES?

Imgrund also said there is an issue with the way York Region is defining active cases, further reducing the numbers.

"Previously, cases were considered resolved at 24 days; however, based on the new guidance, cases were recategorized to auto resolve at 10 days,” Casey said.

For Imgrund, this isn’t realistic and rather “ridiculous.”

“Now, if somebody goes to the hospital, it's 11 days after symptoms, and they're still in a hospital bed, why in the world would you remove them from your data account?” he questioned. “That’s, once again, intentional manipulation of data so you can tell a story, which doesn't reflect reality.”