The data management that surround the new coronavirus by the Ministry of Health and the autonomous communities is one of the most recurrent sources of problems during the health crisis. First, communities had to report all positive cases, regardless of the evidence that detected them. Given the disparity of criteria, the directive changed and the communities were required to separate the positives according to the test that detected them -PCR or antibody tests. Later, some communities -such as Catalonia- distanced themselves by notifying the deaths registered by the funeral homes. The constant changes make it difficult to draw the evolution of the daily impact of the Covid-19
in our country and make comparisons between communities impossible. Even more so when more than 80% of the cases it collects Madrid I know distribute in their historical series and they do not count as new infections.
The community chaired by the popular Isabel Díaz Ayuso sends Health a daily report in which it notifies, like the others, all the cases, deceased, hospitalized, admitted to ICUs and recovered by the new coronavirus in the last 24 hours. The data, however, cannot be translated as the exact epidemiological image of the day. The figure will grow in the following days, since Madrid assigns “to the new cases notified the date on which the sample is taken or the result is issued,” as the daily Health report indicates since April 30.
A method that changes the history every day
“All these data are then consolidated each day and vary from previous days,” said the Ministry of Health. This method, which precludes any comparison between regions since it is not the one used by the others, is defended as the most “honest”, since “it shows the reality closest to the moment of contagion”, they point out. The modifications of the figures of previous days also imply varying the total and increase of cases nationwide, day after day.
In this way, Madrid assigns “to new notified cases the date on which the sample is taken or the result is issued,” as the daily Health report since April 30 points out. “All these data are then consolidated every day and the data from previous days varies as they are consolidated,” they point out from the Ministry of Health. As an example. Last Wednesday, May 13, the community reported an increase of 75 positive cases compared to the previous day. That day, however, Madrid also highlighted the existence of 297 new cases incorporated into the historical series. This figure modified both the total number of cases and the increase of the previous days. In the same way, the data offered the following days modified the one announced on May 13: according to the report of May 18, the cases registered on the 13th are no longer 75, but 198. With this method, the Community of Madrid claimed to have only 5 new infections last Monday, while incorporating 88 into its history.
With this system, looking at the evolution of the total number of cases, at the national level and in the Community of Madrid, is also complicated. The only figure that can be taken into account is the last one, since the publication of this automatically modifies that of previous days, when Madrid awarded past dates to the cases collected.
The proceeding of the community is not, as they point out from the council, “nothing unusual”. “We notify everything,” they point out, assigning each positive to the day the PCR request was made. Another example: the 5 cases reported last Monday correspond to people who requested the test on Sunday and obtained the results the same day claiming to be carriers of the SARS-CoV-2. The other 88 are spread over “the two or three” previous days, since they correspond to delays in the notification of positives.
The number of new cases in the last 24 hours cannot be used as an argument to demonstrate, refute or even define the epidemiological situation in Madrid. The important thing, as they emphasize from the counseling “is that the trend is positive” and the number of cases “decreases week by week”. Despite this, from some sectors, daily data is used to argue a faster de-escalation for the community and to criticize the management of the Pedro Sánchez government.
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