Virus data glitch frustrates counties

Case counts, positivity rates underreported; state pledges ‘full accounting’ of delays

“They want to take an automated process and turn it into an analog process — which is great if I had one thousand people who can deconstruct spreadsheets.”

— San Mateo County Health Officer Dr. Scott Morrow

As technical problems continued to plague the California public health department’s coronavirus reporting system Thursday, overwhelmed and frustrated local officials in some counties stopped updating their daily case totals, resorting instead to oldfashioned spreadsheets to track the spread of the deadly virus.

The systemwide glitch has left counties in a holding pattern for basic information about case counts and positivity rates, but state officials remained silent Thursday about the timeline for a fix or an explanation of what has caused the massive data lag. Local officials have said the state assured them the data they are getting is valid but not complete, but it raises deep concerns about the true scope of positive tests and trends.

“They don’t know where the problem is, so they don’t know how soon it’ll be fixed, because they’re still trying to figure it out,” said Santa Clara County CEO Jeff Smith. “I’m emotionally pretty depressed about the whole thing because this is absolutely the worst time in the world to get this kind of information.”

Death totals are unaffected by the glitch, and California reported more than 140 new COVID-19 deaths Thursday, sending its total number over 10,000, according to data compiled by this news organization.

Billed as a real-time source of data for the state and local health departments, the Cal

ifornia Reportable Disease Information Exchange, or CalREDIE, collects information about coronavirus cases from labs and sends it back to county public health departments. The technical problem may stem from a data overload of Rhapsody, a privately owned platform that feeds lab reports into CalREDIE, Smith said he was told by the state.

Spokespersons for the state health department did not respond to detailed questions about the scope of the problem but provided a statement from Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly that “a team of dozens has been

working around the clock to resolve these data problems.”

“We pledge to share a full accounting of when these problems began and their magnitude as soon as we have a clear understanding — and the solutions to address them,” Ghaly added.

After formally contacting counties about the problem starting in late July, the state asked labs conducting testing to provide data manually so the state could send it to counties in spreadsheet form. Local officials said they may begin pulling results on their own from health care providers or directly from labs themselves.

But when San Mateo County officials tried that and parsed through lab data Thursday, what they

saw contained needless results from other states such as Utah and Nevada, Health Officer Dr. Scott Morrow told this news organization.

“They want to take an automated process and turn it into an analog process — which is great if I had one thousand people who can deconstruct spreadsheets,” Morrow said. “It’s like, OK, I could spend all day taking out Utah residents, but I don’t think there’s anything fixable in this except fixing the automated process.”

Some jurisdictions, such as Santa Cruz, Ventura, Stanislaus and Kings counties, did not report new case numbers at all Wednesday, with several citing the data problems. San Francisco officials also said they would stop until a solution is underway.

Despite mounting frustration from public officials, epidemiologists said the underreported case numbers likely aren’t obscuring alarming trends.

Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an epidemiologist with UC San Francisco, noted that stabilizing hospitalizations over the past week are evidence that cases are indeed going down as Gov. Gavin Newsom has said — even if it’s not clear exactly how much since Newsom’s decision to shut down more sectors starting in mid-July. Hospitalization numbers are reported through a separate system that is unaffected by the data problems, the state has said.

Over the past week, confirmed COVID-19 hospitalizations have decreased by

more than 500 patients to 6,069 people, according to the California Department of Public Health.

“It falls into what we expect — Newsom makes a decision, test positivity rates go down, then there’s a lag, then hospitalizations go down,” Chin-Hong said, adding that the CalREDIE technical problem “has a lot of social implications, but not for our appreciation of what’s actually happening in the community.”

Still, the state has paused taking counties on or off its watchlist until the data delays are resolved. But even at currently reported levels, cases are too high to allow any Bay Area counties to exit the state’s watchlist and start reopening again.

Though hospitalizations are trending downward,

no local county meets the state’s threshold for controlling case numbers.

San Mateo County, with a rate of 12.5 cases per 10,000 residents over the past two weeks, is closest to falling below the state threshold, followed by Santa Clara County, with a per-capita rate of 13.9 per 10,000. The state’s threshold is 10.

But for Morrow, the state’s metrics are riddled with arbitrariness as now illustrated by the direct link “between this flawed data process and closures of businesses and closures of schools” that appears to have no imminent solution.

“I’m frustrated. It does not have to be this way,” Morrow said.

Staff writer Evan Webeck contributed to this report.