The deletion of the daily report of Govt-19 published by Health is disappointing

It is true that the weekly average of the course is considered to be an adequate indicator of the course of the spread Govit-19 In the country, deleting by Department of Health Reports revealing daily changes in the records of confirmed cases, possible cases and deaths, in the midst of a dramatic re-emergence, are not well considered by experts in this matter, arguing that it is an effective tool for maintaining information on the average citizen.

“It seems to me that the moment of complicating the situation is not the best time to change the information. It is time to let the public know that things are not going well. It helps to encourage those who are still skeptical about vaccination to take the right action. Even if it is a biased idea, it gives people an idea of ​​where things are going, as Salute says, because the data does not reflect the moment, because they are received randomly, and everyone reports on their own time. And it gives people an idea of ​​transparency, ”the epidemiologist said. Angels Rodriguez.

“When you make that kind of change, what you bring is distrust,” the former state epidemiologist stressed.

In a statement released this afternoon, the Department of Health said all information contained in the daily reports, It lasted until July 21st, Is in the new ‘Dashboard’ released in the same week.

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Daily reports have been published in April 2020 since the start of the Govt-19 emergency in Puerto Rico. With minor differences over time, they included on their front page confirmed infections (molecular testing), possible (antigens) and suspected (serological) added from the previous day, and deaths due to Govt-19. Population registration. In the following pages, the report went on to summarize, detailing the infections and deaths recorded at the municipal or regional level and the age and gender.

The current digital dashboard – its third edition since the onset of the epidemic – contains much of this information, although it is up to the user to efficiently manage the tools. However, except for the period of suspected cases – when serological tests did not detect the virus – this eliminated the sequence of confirmed and possible cases in the last 24 hours.

“Although most of this information is obtained through the descriptive training of the data available on the bioport, it can be credited to the journalist who makes mistakes when reporting,” he said. Tamaris Suarez, Chairman Puerto Rico Journalists Association, In a statement this morning.

Suarez, with the President Foreign Press Club, Luis CardiolaAnnounced that the alliance with Community Health Coalition of Puerto RicoPress organizations will release a refined report by tomorrow, Monday.

The Department of Health has insisted that the recommendation to prioritize the weekly average came from the input. Scientific Alliance, Mainly to cancel the statistical deviation of Saturdays and Sundays, the days when laboratories rarely operate and carry out tests. However, the fact is that the ‘dashboard’ contains all the information included in the old reports and does not allow to know the daily increase of confirmed or potential infections.

Doctor Marcos Lopez Casillas, Of the Scientific Coalition, confirmed that the committee was formed by the Governor Pedro Pierlucci He recommended Salad to focus the analysis on weekly averages, but promised he didn’t know why it stopped publishing daily reports, which were spread on the company’s social media sites every morning.

“It doesn’t affect my data analysis, but I understand that journalists and the public may have liked it or been accustomed to reading the report. It would have been a good idea to adapt the report to the new reality of the ‘dashboard’. .Why did they remove it? I do not know, maybe they thought it was not so useful. But I met people who understand that it is important, “said the chemistry professor. University of Puerto Rico in Humacao.

Delayed data

Health Department ‘Dashboard’ It awoke today with an average of 201 confirmed cases in the last seven days, adding up to 184 potential cases. Both figures are less than reflected in the portal Covit-19 monitoring, From Professor of Biostatistics Raphael Irisari, Corresponding to July 31, with an average of 259 confirmed infections and 287 possible.

Lopez Casillas explained that the discrepancy arises because of the inclusion of data included in the platform of Irisari, a Harvard professor and member of the Scientific Alliance. BioPortal In real time health, even if the agency data is manually cleaned, will mainly eliminate duplicate cases.

“Rafa keeps his ‘dashboard’ fully automatic and changes as soon as the data is entered […] The Health Dashboard is not like that. It is a sample taken from the data, which are analyzed and unique cases are drawn. Rafa deletes them (copies), but he does them in real time, with codes, ”said Lopez Casillas.

On the other hand, the expert urged health to resume monthly reports revealing areas facing problems with the Govt-19 outbreak and the gaps associated with the high number of infections. From Jose Bezera In May, he was appointed chief epidemiologist of the company.

Rodriguez, meanwhile, stressed the importance of having reports with analytics that allow us to determine what eruptions are responding to, such as the presence of more aggressive variants such as delta. In this sense, he agreed with Besero’s revelations, noting that reports would resume once integrity was guaranteed within the criteria he had publicly stated.

“Everything should be called by the same name. This should be the same definition globally,” Rodriguez said, adding that the fact that many infections may be related to the same “source” is not the same as establishing that an “outbreak” occurred.

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