York Region adapts COVID-19 data reports to reflect changing situation

newmarkettoday.ca
Jan. 12, 2022

With the omicron variant changing the face of the pandemic in its fifth wave, York Region is changing how it is reporting COVID-19 data to the public.

Due to the restrictions the province has placed on access to testing, York Region is stating its data may not accurately represent the spread of COVID-19 in the community.

“With the rapid rise of Omicron cases and recently announced changes at the provincial level related to testing eligibility and case management, many health units are now faced with the reality that case data reported externally is not a true representation of emerging cases,” said Patrick Casey, director of corporate communications at the region, in an email.

“As a result, changes are being implemented on the interactive dashboard to account for the provincial prioritization of case management of high-risk individuals and settings.”

A written warning about the likely data underestimation was added to the dashboard on york.ca.

It reads: “With the rapid transmission of Omicron and recent provincial changes in testing eligibility and case management, case counts and outbreaks reported through the COVID-19 in York Region interactive dashboard are an underestimate of the true number of individuals with COVID-19 and outbreaks in York Region. Case counts and trends should be interpreted with caution. Public Health Units across Ontario are prioritizing case management of high-risk individuals and settings. Workplace outbreaks are no longer reported.”

The region has also stopped reporting the reproductive number, or Rt, which estimates the average number of people infected for every one person with COVID-19. If the number is above 1.0, it indicates the virus is spreading.

“Given the changes in testing availability, cases counts are now underestimated in York Region and, as a result, it is no longer possible to accurately estimate the reproductive number in York Region," Casey said.

The public health unit has updated how vaccination rates are being tracked and added the number of residents who have received their booster or third dose or the vaccine. 

This data shows the total number of people and the proportion of York Region residents who have received a third dose.

Prior to Jan. 10, only residents aged 50 and older were eligible to receive a third dose in York Region. Because of this, the proportion of those aged 12+ and 5+ show “N/A” on the dashboard.

The region is no longer reporting age coverage over time for first and second doses, which were first introduced during the staged rollout of the vaccine and are not as relevant currently, according to Casey. That data is now captured as part of the overall dose reporting.

The interactive dashboard displays COVID-19 case counts, outbreak information and other relevant data for individuals municipalities and the region as a whole.

The daily COVID-19 reports from the province also now come with caveats indicating underestimation of cases due to restricted testing.

As a result, the accuracy surrounding the number of hospitalizations has also been called into question -- specifically, how many of those people are actually hospitalized because of COVID and not for something unrelated. The province is reportedly working on a review of its hospitalization data.

York Region stopped reporting local hospitalization data last April when the public and media questioned their accuracy.

At that time, the local public health unit aligned its data tracking with the Ministry of Health’s latest definition of a resolved case -- case data changes automatically in the system based on the number of days of infection, and is not based on when an individual has actually recovered -- which significantly decreased the number of hospitalizations, as well as active cases in general, on York Region’s public dashboard on April 21.

Previously, cases that were considered resolved at 24 days then “auto resolved” at 10 days. If the case received ICU-level care, it was considered automatically resolved after 20 days.

On Dec. 30, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Kieran Moore, confirmed there are hospitalization reports that include incidental admissions such as someone coming in with a broken leg who also tests positive for COVID.

“We don’t want those numbers contributing to our understanding of the burden of hospitalizations in Ontario, so we’ve asked all of our hospital partners to be more vigorous in their reporting so that we can provide a reliable source of data to the decision-makers and to Ontarians on the impact of COVID on our hospital sector,” said Moore during the Dec. 30 briefing.

Moore said he’s more confident in the ICU admissions, given hospitals are only supposed to report critical, COVID-related illness.

“I have more confidence in that number, but we are asking them to review it once more,” said Moore.

He said there was a memo sent to all hospitals on Dec. 29 asking for data to be reviewed.

The province's daily reporting does not include emergency room visits where a person comes to the ER with COVID or tests positive while they are there.