It was the sudden increase in the number of cases of Covid-19 recorded in the municipality of Porto that raised the alarm. On Sunday, the report DGS registered 417 cases in that municipality. On Monday, the number shot for 941 – more than double the previous day. This Tuesday, however, the number fell again, for 462.
The problem? A duplication of data due to the multiplication of information sources.
To resolve it, the Directorate-General for Health decided that, as of now, only data reported through the National Epidemiological Surveillance System (SINAVE) – the computer system where doctors must register all cases – will be considered or confirmed. suspects – of infectious diseases. But this decision has the potential to further undermine the reliability of the data, according to infectious diseases with knowledge of the functioning of the system heard by the Observer.
At Tuesday’s daily press conference, Deputy Director-General for Health, Diogo Cruz, explained what had happened on Monday and confirmed the revelation hours earlier by Jornal de Notícias: there had been a doubling the case count Covid-19 in the municipality of Porto, the result of the improper sum of the data reported directly by doctors through the SINAVE and information communicated to DGS at regional level by the Regional Health Administration (ARS) of the North.
“There was an attempt here to give as many numbers as possible and there was a duplication of values in yesterday’s number, because there was a confluence between the data reported in the region and the data reported via SINAVE”, admitted Diogo Cruz, to add that “the newsletter, starting today, will only have data from SINAVE, so there are no duplications“.
This means, as the responsible person admitted, that it is unlikely, from now on, complete data on the geographic distribution of Covid-19 cases in Portugal. “We will eventually have some missings [dados em falta] that are not in SINAVE“, Assumed Diogo Cruz, stressing that the number of cases with complete information about the place of residence and other details should be around 70% of the total number confirmed cases.
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