The COVID-19 pandemic

[jamincan]

I have an appointment today with the Trillium Health clinic. I work in Mississauga, so it's not really an inconvenience for me, and I was able to book an appointment for the next day when I found out that they had no residency requirement for vaccinations there.

[Coke6pk]

I have shot #1 and am eligible for shot #2 at the shortened timeline. I'm waiting to hear from ROW about my new date for #2, but when I'm in the office, it's in Mississauga. Anyone had experience doing a second shot in a different region? Does the Peel signup ask if its shot #1 or #2?

Coke

[tomh009]

2,400 cases today, up from 1,588. But, looking at the data and comparing to regional numbers, I think they had some kind of a problem yesterday, and the 1,588 was a partial report only. Both yesterday and today should have likely been much closer to the 2,000 mark.

There must still be a lot of manual work in this reporting, otherwise we would not be seeing so many (and so many different) inconsistencies in the daily reporting.

[Rainrider22]

I got my first shot through Peel. and I am now getting my second through Peel. I work in Peel as well.

I got much faster results and feed back through Peel than Waterloo Regional Health... They were horrible in my opinion.

Peel will ask the date of your first shot.

[jeffster]

2,400 cases today, up from 1,588. But, looking at the data and comparing to regional numbers, I think they had some kind of a problem yesterday, and the 1,588 was a partial report only. Both yesterday and today should have likely been much closer to the 2,000 mark.

There must still be a lot of manual work in this reporting, otherwise we would not be seeing so many (and so many different) inconsistencies in the daily reporting.

They should have two reports: one for new total cases reported overall, and one for reported new cases report today.

For example, yesterdays report of 1,588, included 468 cases over 1 week old, 41 over and month old, and several from 2020. Actually cases yesterday were 692. Plus 313 from todays total, for 1005 total.

Todays actually case count was 965.

[jeffster]

I got my first shot through Peel.  and I am now getting my second through Peel.  I work in Peel as well.

I got much faster results and feed back through Peel than Waterloo Regional Health... They were horrible in my opinion.

Peel will ask the date of your first shot.

We had a lot of issues with RoW Health Unit. We basically gave up on it, it's a hot mess. Congrats on your Peel vaccine tho.

[jeffster]

I'm going to try to provide actual case numbers here, with adjustments to 1 day prior. As you all know, reporting is very inaccurate, and doesn't tell an accurate story. In some cases, a "confirmed" case being reported could be over a year old. For example, todays numbers included 1,355 cases that occurred May 4-18. 80 cases are from early 2021 and 2020.

Another example, yesterdays positive tests were 965, which might not be fully accurate either when tomorrows result come in, which likely will include some cases from todays numbers.

[danbrotherston]

I cannot understand how these reporting errors continue to this day.

This isn't rocket science...

[megabytephreak]

I'm going to try to provide actual case numbers here, with adjustments to 1 day prior. As you all know, reporting is very inaccurate, and doesn't tell an accurate story. In some cases, a "confirmed" case being reported could be over a year old. For example, todays numbers included 1,355 cases that occurred May 4-18. 80 cases are from early 2021 and 2020.

Another example, yesterdays positive tests were 965, which might not be fully accurate either when tomorrows result come in, which likely will include some cases from todays numbers.

The episode date (which is the date you are using) is not directly connected to the test date. They must ask when people started feeling sick/last possible exposure. So it's very reasonable that many of the tests have episode dates up to 1-2 weeks prior to the current date. The episode date is more revealing than the test date for epidemiological purposes.

What the data means is that there are  965 cases found yesterday which cannot be tied to an earlier exposure risk/symptom start. Many (but not all) of the remaining cases will have been tested in the last day or two, but had information indicating an earlier case start date. The vast majority of the episode dates seem to fall within the 2 week window for developing symptoms after exposure.

For providing a real-time readout, the number of reported positive tests is still a reasonable metric. You can't have a reasonable readout of the number of transmissions on a date for until somewhere between 1-2 weeks after that date, due to time for symptom development and test processing/reporting. The Waterloo region site allows to view the data by either reporting date or episode date, but notes the lag means the reporting by episode date is under-counted in the immediate past.
https://www.regionofwaterloo.ca/en/healt...egion.aspx

[danbrotherston]

I'm going to try to provide actual case numbers here, with adjustments to 1 day prior. As you all know, reporting is very inaccurate, and doesn't tell an accurate story. In some cases, a "confirmed" case being reported could be over a year old. For example, todays numbers included 1,355 cases that occurred May 4-18. 80 cases are from early 2021 and 2020.

Another example, yesterdays positive tests were 965, which might not be fully accurate either when tomorrows result come in, which likely will include some cases from todays numbers.

The episode date (which is the date you are using) is not directly connected to the test date. They must ask when people started feeling sick/last possible exposure. So it's very reasonable that many of the tests have episode dates up to 1-2 weeks prior to the current date. The episode date is more revealing than the test date for epidemiological purposes.

What the data means is that there are  965 cases found yesterday which cannot be tied to an earlier exposure risk/symptom start. Many (but not all) of the remaining cases will have been tested in the last day or two, but had information indicating an earlier case start date. The vast majority of the episode dates seem to fall within the 2 week window for developing symptoms after exposure.

For providing a real-time readout, the number of reported positive tests is still a reasonable metric. You can't have a reasonable readout of the number of transmissions on a date for until somewhere between 1-2 weeks after that date, due to time for symptom development and test processing/reporting. The Waterloo region site allows to view the data by either reporting date or episode date, but notes the lag means the reporting by episode date is under-counted in the immediate past.
https://www.regionofwaterloo.ca/en/healt...egion.aspx

Tomh can confirm this, but I am fairly certain the numbers they are reporting are testing dates. Episode date would result in most cases being added to totals days before. The numbers Tomh reports are mostly day of, but for some reason frequently include backdated corrections.

While episode date has value, over long enough time periods it's equivalent to test date, and more, because symptoms take 2-14 days to appear, it's never particularly accurate in the short term either.

It is worth looking at both, but episode date does not explain the backdated corrections.

[tomh009]

Tomh can confirm this, but I am fairly certain the numbers they are reporting are testing dates. Episode date would result in most cases being added to totals days before. The numbers Tomh reports are mostly day of, but for some reason frequently include backdated corrections.

While episode date has value, over long enough time periods it's equivalent to test date, and more, because symptoms take 2-14 days to appear, it's never particularly accurate in the short term either.

It is worth looking at both, but episode date does not explain the backdated corrections.

Yeah, I have been reporting on test result dates, not episode dates, since the beginning.

[tomh009]

Now, about vaccinations and hesitancy. An ad hoc chart so no units showing but it's not really the point. Canada in blue, US in grey and UK in orange. The chart shows incremental number of first vaccinations/100 by day. This is why Canada has now caught up to the US in the total percentage of people who have received at least one shot.

The US will have more people with antibodies (from having been through COVID) but in the longer term this vaccine hesitancy will be a serious problem for them.

   

[megabytephreak]

Tomh can confirm this, but I am fairly certain the numbers they are reporting are testing dates. Episode date would result in most cases being added to totals days before. The numbers Tomh reports are mostly day of, but for some reason frequently include backdated corrections.

While episode date has value, over long enough time periods it's equivalent to test date, and more, because symptoms take 2-14 days to appear, it's never particularly accurate in the short term either.

It is worth looking at both, but episode date does not explain the backdated corrections.

Yeah, I have been reporting on test result dates, not episode dates, since the beginning.

Yes, I'm not questioning your data, but the numbers Jeffster was quoting, such as 965 positive tests yesterday, which is IMO a misunderstanding or characterization of the data. 965 is the number of cases reported today with an episode date of 2 days ago (there are a few with a 1-day old episode date as well). See linked spreadsheet from u/enterprisevalue on reddit:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...&range=D74

This clearly shows the breakdown of cases reported each day by episode date lag.

I agree with your use of the test result data for real-time understanding.

[tomh009]

THURSDAY 2021-05-20

Waterloo Region reported 64 new cases for today (13.1% of the active cases) and zero more for yesterday for 39; 439 new cases for the week (+12), averaging 12.1% of active cases. 505 active cases, +4 in the last seven days.

Next testing report on Friday.

5,574 doses of vaccine administered with a seven-day average of 4,033. At this pace, the dose count will reach 70% of the regional population on 2021-06-29 (-4 days). This date is now trailing the provincial one by 23 days (-4).

Ontario reported 2,400 new cases today with a seven-day average of 2,131 (-52). 2,763 recoveries and 27 deaths translated to a decrease of 390 active cases and a new total of 23,026. -6,209 active cases for the week and 147 deaths (21 per day). 45,406 tests with a positivity rate of 5.29%. The positivity rate is averaging 6.20% for the past seven days, compared to 6.96% for the preceding seven.

721 patients in ICU (-14 today, -55 for the week) and 1,320 total hospital patients (-312 for the week).

144,986 doses of vaccine administered, with another record seven-day average at 135,323. At this pace, the dose count will reach 70% of the provincial population on 2021-06-06 (+0 days).

• 224 cases in Hamilton: 38.7 per 100K
  
• 528 cases in Peel: 38.2 per 100K
  
• 89 cases in Middlesex-London: 22.0 per 100K
  
• 607 cases in Toronto: 20.7 per 100K
  
• 110 cases in Durham: 17.0 per 100K
  
• 181 cases in York: 16.3 per 100K
  
• 68 cases in Niagara: 15.2 per 100K
  
• 55 cases in Windsor-Essex: 14.1 per 100K
  
• 70 cases in Simcoe-Muskoka: 13.0 per 100K
  
• 78 cases in Waterloo: 12.6 per 100K (based on provincial reporting)
  
• 69 cases in Halton: 12.6 per 100K
  
• 17 cases in Brant: 12.5 per 100K
  
• 15 cases in Lambton: 11.5 per 100K
  
• 29 cases in Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph: 10.7 per 100K
  
• 92 cases in Ottawa: 9.2 per 100K
  
• 18 cases in Eastern Ontario: 8.9 per 100K
  
• 6 cases in Huron Perth: 6.1 per 100K
  
• 11 cases in Southwestern Ontario: 5.5 per 100K
  
• 7 cases in Thunder Bay: 4.7 per 100K
  
• 4 cases in Northwestern: 4.6 per 100K
  
• 5 cases in Kingston Frontenac: 2.4 per 100K
  
• 4 cases in Leeds, Grenville & Lanark: 2.4 per 100K
  

[jeffster]

I got my first shot through Peel.  and I am now getting my second through Peel.  I work in Peel as well.

I got much faster results and feed back through Peel than Waterloo Regional Health... They were horrible in my opinion.

Peel will ask the date of your first shot.

We had a lot of issues with RoW Health Unit. We basically gave up on it, it's a hot mess. Congrats on your Peel vaccine tho.