Bridging data gap helps all: scientists

Academics, researchers, journalists and the public have been calling on B.C. authorities to release more COVID-19 information for months, with limited success.

But there are signs that might start to change, following public outcry over leaked reports showing much more detailed figures were not being made public.

The B.C. Centre for Disease Control's internal documents included neighbourhood-level maps of cases and vaccinations. That level of detail allows for a better understanding of inequality in the pandemic's impact and can help the public make decisions about their levels of contact, said Caroline Colijn, Canada 150 Research Chair in mathematics for infection, evolution and public health.

On Friday, the province promised to start releasing more of this information.

“The public can make good decisions if it has good information,” said Colijn. “Knowing that cases are really high in your jurisdiction may make you stay home more.”

The internal reports included detailed information about vaccinations, including age, priority populations and geography. Colijn said that level of detail is critical for helping to understand how and when B.C. could reopen.

Much of what is made public comes in the form of maps, charts and other graphics. While that makes the information easy to access, some researchers and academics say they need the data itself for use in analysis.

“Looking at the same data with different lenses on, we're going to get more information out of it,” said Sarah Otto, Canada Research Chair in theoretical and experimental evolution at UBC.

Figures about which areas are hardest hit and which variants are causing more hospitalizations are unavailable, but Colijn and Otto say the information is needed.

Hospitalization data can help identify inequalities, said Otto.

“That can be analyzed with access to data on hospitalizations and cases and vaccinations.”

Both Colijn and Otto noted that B.C. lags other jurisdictions in publishing genomic data.

According to Otto, B.C. has done more genomic sequencing than many places “but they're not publicly shared.”

Sequencing and analyzing the virus plays a critical role in understanding which variants matter.