Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Prison system botched reporting of COVID cases, state says
The Department of Corrections has been incorrectly reporting coronavirus cases in Nevada facilities because of data entry errors, state officials said.
According to a joint statement from the prison system and the Department of Health and Human Services, reporting errors were found in the data posted to Nevada’s coronavirus dashboard that tracks cases and deaths in state facilities. The data errors caused cumulative case counts among prisoners and staff to drop by 268 since last week, according to records maintained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The state health department’s office of public health investigations and epidemiology discovered the errors last week “when data was reviewed with NDOC,” health department spokeswoman Shannon Litz said in an emailed statement.
“Incorrect identification of facilities resulted in duplicate entries, coding issues and the inclusion of negative COVID-19 test results which were then posted to the dashboard as confirmed positive cases,” the department said.
Litz said the department believes the errors were all made “recently.”
However, some errors were found to go back weeks.
The total number of coronavirus cases associated with the Florence McClure Women’s Correctional Center, in the northeast Las Vegas Valley, dropped from 142 total cases to 74 this week when some prisoner and staff cases were removed from the data. The 142 cumulative total had been reported on the state’s dashboard since at least mid-January, records show.
Other facilities, such as Humboldt Conservation Camp and Jean Conservation Camp, also had been reporting cumulative case numbers since mid-January that hadn’t changed until this
week, when their case counts were slightly lowered.
Litz said some of the discrepancies come from how the Department of Correction categorized test kits assigned to each facility.
“Some kits were shared among neighboring facilities, and the results were assigned to the wrong institution,” she said. “NDOC has reviewed the data and assigned the results by name of the test recipient rather
than by test kit.”
Meanwhile, Wells Conservation Camp, which had 79 coronavirus cases among prisoners and employees as of Feb. 16, was removed from the dashboard this week. Although the camp has been reporting cases since at least early January, Litz said there are no active cases at the facility.
The Department of Corrections did not respond to a request for comment.
As of Friday, state data shows 4,473 prisoner cases of COVID-19, after the cumulative total was lowed by 201 since Feb. 16, records show. The Review-Journal typically records state facility coronavirus data on Tuesdays.
There were 966 cumulative staff cases in the department as of Friday. The cumulative total had decreased by 67 since Feb. 16.
Fifty-three prisoners have died of the coronavirus in Nevada, along with three staff members, according to state data.
Litz said the state prison system is required to update its data in a reporting system daily.
“The departments are working together to ensure there are no gaps in reporting or understanding of the reporting systems going forward,” she said.
On the morning of Tuesday, February 16, 2021, Helen Oxley, also affectionately known as “Margie” and “Aunt Bubbles”, peacefully passed into the beautiful light of eternity and into the loving arms of family and friends who had gone before her. Helen was born in Elmo County, Missouri on August 15, 1935. She worked for a time at Sunrise Hospital, but retired from the Clark County Marriage Bureau where she rose through the ranks from a Marriage License Clerk to a Marriage Commissioner. Helen performed hundreds of weddings during her career. She actually performed a wedding for a niece, Heidi, and her hubby, Richard, still happy after 25 years! She lit up a room and fed your spirit, and had the heartiest belly laugh of anyone you have ever heard!! If you met her once, you were a friend forever and she forever then called you “Kid”! Helen was an avid, voracious Dallas Cowboys fan, and you literally had to wear earplugs to watch a game with her because she screamed through the whole thing! “Get the SOB”!! Maybe she should have been a coach!! Helen is survived her three children - Kim Adriansen (John); Valerie Oxley (Fred); son Jim Oxley; one brother, Ralph Hanna and numerous nieces and nephews. Helen was preceded in death by her father and mother, Don and Cecil Hanna, and sisters Donabelle and Glendoris. The family would like to thank all the people who cared so compassionately for Mom, especially Marcia (partner in crime), her roommate, Rhoda (the Viking) and Carmen aka Big Mama. You are all loved!!! Helen was the only resident left on Mt. McKinley Street in the Sunrise Trailer Estates from 40 years ago! Her home was her castle and she was well loved by all who met her. She had no enemies! Helen’s favorite thing to do was to sit on her porch, drink her coffee, talk to the birds, and throw the ball for beloved rescue, Vinny. Mom, your spirit and light will shine in our hearts forever!