Case discrepancy: Health department leaves ‘probable cases’ out of some daily COVID-19 LGA data
One of Victorian Department of Health’s daily COVID-19 data updates has not been including probable cases of coronavirus recorded by rapid antigen tests, despite their inclusion in the earlier 9am update on cases.
Goulburn Valley Health chief executive Matt Sharp told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday, February 1, there were more than 2000 active cases of coronavirus across the local public health unit area.
About 900 of those were recorded in Shepparton.
But the Department of Health’s numbers for the same day — released at noon each day — reported 267 active cases in the Greater Shepparton local government area.
Mr Sharp attributed the discrepancy to the inclusion of “probable cases” of COVID-19 recorded with rapid antigen tests in GV Health’s data, as well as the more accurate PCR tests.
“The numbers I’m speaking about are the probable and the confirmed cases — so the RAT tests and also the PCR tests,” he said.
A Victorian Department of Health spokesperson confirmed on Wednesday the data released as part of the daily COVID-19 update did not include results from rapid antigen tests.
The Victorian COVID-19 data website — the publishing page for the regular updates — also does not identify that the numbers reported for local government areas only included results from PCR tests.
The department was currently working out a way to include the RATs in the data, but reporting inconsistencies around when people reported their positive RAT results was proving difficult to account for, the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said many people often reported their positive result a week after they received it, which would incorrectly impact the data.
Mr Sharp said the inclusion of the probable cases in regular COVID-19 updates helped people to visualise the coronavirus situation in the Goulburn Valley.
“People who are testing positive (with rapid antigen tests) are required to report that through the department’s portal and they’re being treated as positive cases,” he said.
“The rapid antigen tests are a really useful and effective way for understanding the case numbers.
“They’re being treated as positive cases.”