To reiterate from the Deadline article posted above:
"On Friday, California’s top health official was sent out by his boss to face the music. ...
"Dr. Mark Ghaly, director of the state’s Health and Human Services Department, ...admitted that multiple errors ... had caused a backlog of 250,000-300,000 records in its case data reporting system.
"The state’s backlog of 250,000-300,000 records will be resolved in next 24-48 hours, he said. The test results will be added to the case totals for the days on which they would have originally reported."
"The director said that the errors only impacted daily case numbers..."
"“I became aware of the magnitude of the data backlog in the late afternoon on Monday [August 3],” said Ghaly"
48+ hours after the press conference, I see no sign of changes in numbers (testing, cases) published on Sunday by Santa Clara County. I don't see that the last few days numbers are showing signs that the problems have been fixed, and certainly no addition of purportedly 300K testing records (which would mean about 24K extra cases).
Moreover, I wonder whether 300K test records is accurate. Santa Clara county (<2M pop) reported 23K fewer tests in the first week of missing data, compared to the previous week, a drop of a bit more than 50%. The State of California is 20x the size of SCC. If SCC's testing levels & loss of results were representative of the state, that is about 460K missing tests per week for the state. There have been 3 weeks where data apparently has been missing. That would be 1.4M tests. If positive testing rates were about 8%, that's 112K cases. I actually expect this to be an overestimate of missing results because L.A. County's drop off seemed to be less, and the 2nd week of missing data had about 75% of the tests reported 2 weeks earlier. (But, I certainly hope the 250K-300K quoted wasn't number of positive results, but he did say it was "case data". If it is, the problem has been going on longer.)
Possibly, the backlog is being held back until Monday so the governor can announce it (and possibly replacements for the people in charge).
(I first reported the drop in testing & cases in SCC on the morning of July 31. The head of the Calif. HHS only heard about it on Aug. 3 ???)
I compared the numbers in the state's reporting of daily cases for SCC (last updated 8/8) with the numbers as originally announced by SCC as new daily cases. These numbers apparently are extracted from the real database at a different time of day, because they are +/- 30% from the originally announced numbers (and, typically, about 5% of each day's numbers are subsequently removed ("reclassified")). The state's numbers for the period in question track what SCC has previously announced. There have been no data added.
California's reporting of the number of tests for the state per week (Sunday to Saturday) and the number of new cases that week.
I'm also reporting the new cases/tests. Because of repeated tests, I don't know that these percentages match the "% positive" numbers.
I do not know if the "number of tests" means the number of tests for which results are known.
Week Tests New cases New cases/Tests
6/14-6/20 543,504 22,372 4.12%
6/21 650,006 34,115 5.25%
6/28 731,661 46,733 6.39%
7/05 751,012 49,120 6.54%
7/12 870,173 55,530 6.38%
7/19 882,040 62,121 7.04%
7/26-8/1 888,118 48,612 5.47%
There were hefty increases in testing numbers in June but the growth of these numbers dramatically slowed in mid July. (July 23 is the data of the document detailing priorities in testing.)
Can we believe the 5.47%? I don't know. We aren't told the nature of the missing cases. If they are randomly dropped, then yes. But, if they are (for instance), cases that were reported late, that's a potential bias (perhaps for more or fewer positives, I don't know).
I hope we find out that the decrease in cases/test is real. That would be good news.
UPDATE: (Mon 05:30) The state's County variance info page now says:
"Note: Recent issues found in the state's electronic laboratory reporting system that contributed to delays have been fixed.
Today's data includes some cases from prior days, and we continue to work through the backlog."
"On Friday, California’s top health official was sent out by his boss to face the music. ...
"Dr. Mark Ghaly, director of the state’s Health and Human Services Department, ...admitted that multiple errors ... had caused a backlog of 250,000-300,000 records in its case data reporting system.
"The state’s backlog of 250,000-300,000 records will be resolved in next 24-48 hours, he said. The test results will be added to the case totals for the days on which they would have originally reported."
"The director said that the errors only impacted daily case numbers..."
"“I became aware of the magnitude of the data backlog in the late afternoon on Monday [August 3],” said Ghaly"
48+ hours after the press conference, I see no sign of changes in numbers (testing, cases) published on Sunday by Santa Clara County. I don't see that the last few days numbers are showing signs that the problems have been fixed, and certainly no addition of purportedly 300K testing records (which would mean about 24K extra cases).
Moreover, I wonder whether 300K test records is accurate. Santa Clara county (<2M pop) reported 23K fewer tests in the first week of missing data, compared to the previous week, a drop of a bit more than 50%. The State of California is 20x the size of SCC. If SCC's testing levels & loss of results were representative of the state, that is about 460K missing tests per week for the state. There have been 3 weeks where data apparently has been missing. That would be 1.4M tests. If positive testing rates were about 8%, that's 112K cases. I actually expect this to be an overestimate of missing results because L.A. County's drop off seemed to be less, and the 2nd week of missing data had about 75% of the tests reported 2 weeks earlier. (But, I certainly hope the 250K-300K quoted wasn't number of positive results, but he did say it was "case data". If it is, the problem has been going on longer.)
Possibly, the backlog is being held back until Monday so the governor can announce it (and possibly replacements for the people in charge).
(I first reported the drop in testing & cases in SCC on the morning of July 31. The head of the Calif. HHS only heard about it on Aug. 3 ???)
I compared the numbers in the state's reporting of daily cases for SCC (last updated 8/8) with the numbers as originally announced by SCC as new daily cases. These numbers apparently are extracted from the real database at a different time of day, because they are +/- 30% from the originally announced numbers (and, typically, about 5% of each day's numbers are subsequently removed ("reclassified")). The state's numbers for the period in question track what SCC has previously announced. There have been no data added.
California's reporting of the number of tests for the state per week (Sunday to Saturday) and the number of new cases that week.
I'm also reporting the new cases/tests. Because of repeated tests, I don't know that these percentages match the "% positive" numbers.
I do not know if the "number of tests" means the number of tests for which results are known.
Week Tests New cases New cases/Tests
6/14-6/20 543,504 22,372 4.12%
6/21 650,006 34,115 5.25%
6/28 731,661 46,733 6.39%
7/05 751,012 49,120 6.54%
7/12 870,173 55,530 6.38%
7/19 882,040 62,121 7.04%
7/26-8/1 888,118 48,612 5.47%
There were hefty increases in testing numbers in June but the growth of these numbers dramatically slowed in mid July. (July 23 is the data of the document detailing priorities in testing.)
Can we believe the 5.47%? I don't know. We aren't told the nature of the missing cases. If they are randomly dropped, then yes. But, if they are (for instance), cases that were reported late, that's a potential bias (perhaps for more or fewer positives, I don't know).
I hope we find out that the decrease in cases/test is real. That would be good news.
UPDATE: (Mon 05:30) The state's County variance info page now says:
"Note: Recent issues found in the state's electronic laboratory reporting system that contributed to delays have been fixed.
Today's data includes some cases from prior days, and we continue to work through the backlog."