Ontario’s pandemic data flawed
Daily virus tally is a jumble of dubious merit
Premier Doug Fo r d regularly reminds Ontarians that lifting the province’s pandemic-related restrictions relies on the science and the numbers. That sounds smart, until one considers how little useful information either the science or the numbers are giving us.
When Ford refers to “the science” it implies a body of established knowledge. Unfortunately, even scientists who know quite a bit about pandemics and coronaviruses generally know very little about this new coronavirus and how it works. A lot more time, data and studies are required before there are firm, useful scientific conclusions about the new virus.
That doesn’ t stop Ontario public health officials from offering their advice, of course, but the only thing they have to rely on is the daily testing result. It would be difficult to find a more uninformative, poorly- presented jumble of numbers.
T he daily big- pic ture numbers tell us nothing useful about the progress of the virus fight. For example, on Thursday, cases increased by 399, a 2.1- per- cent increase in the total of all cases since counting started back in March.
OK, but how does that relate to “flattening the curve” and the target of getting to daily case numbers of 200 or fewer, exclusive of what’s happening in long-term care and retirement homes?
Even the mos t- de ter - mined data sleuth could not shake those numbers from the province’s daily reports. Almost every key number comes with a qualifier that makes it an approximation, at best. Even a “case” isn’t what you’d first think. It means that a person has tested positive, not that they’re sick.
Let’s break the numbers down, starting with the daily tests. That number is factual, but the number of positive cases reported the same day is not strongly connected to it. Because of a lag time in reporting test results, daily numbers are a mix of tests from various days. That tells us nothing about what’s happening right now. The test- reporting backlog is significant. As of Thursday, 13,012 tests were awaiting processing, more than double the number from the start of the week.
Separating the community- transmitted cases from those found in homes for the elderly is critical to reopening the economy, but the provincial report doesn’t make that distinction. It’s a serious failure to deliver obtainable data.
chief medical officer of health does not inspire great confidence.
By the way, that 200- case target for community infections is not something scientific. It’s merely a reflection of the anticipated capacity to trace those 200 infected people’s contacts. That implies that a feeble contact-tracing plan is holding back the restart of the economy, at great public and private cost.
The biggest mistake the provincial report encourages is looking at daily case-number increases of a little over two per cent and concluding that this is great progress compared to the early days of the pandemic, when percentage increases were rising by double digits every day.
Back in March, total case numbers were low and it didn’t take much to make the next day ’ s numbers seem far higher in percentage terms. Now numbers are much higher and the opposite effect is in play. It is highly relevant to note that 78.7 per cent of these cases we keep talking about are resolved, either because the person got better or, unfortunately, died. Total case numbers are worth noting, but they aren’t especially important to understanding the state of the disease right now
Remember that provincial testing only tells us about people who believe they are sick and those most likely to be infected because of their occupation or place of residence. Of the more than 14 million Ontarians who have not been tested, the government knows nothing at all.
It has to be said that Dr. David Williams, the province’s chief medical officer of health, does not inspire great confidence.
At a media briefing Wednesday, he expressed cheery optimism that things were getting better and supported his conclusion by citing the total case numbers per day. He made no effort to put that in the context of how many tests were done or how old the data were.
At the same briefing, Williams told reporters that the province was starting to collect race and socio- economic data about those who test positive for COVID-19, only to be immediately contradicted by his primary associate, who said they were still working on those questions.
Williams and his department can’ t deliver clear, timely information that is tied directly to the standards Premier Doug Ford says must be met, and yet he is Ford’s go- to guy. It’s time for the premier to be a little more demanding.