City and state of SP do not understand what is the case of Covid

After almost two years of the pandemic, there still seems to be some degree of confusion among administrative bodies about what a confirmed case of Covid-19 is. Infections in the capital of São Paulo are registered by the thousands and, meanwhile, the state points out that the city has had a few hundred.

The comparison was made based on the daily bulletins that the city of São Paulo makes available and the open data made available by the state.

The difference between the numbers had already been pointed out by a report from the G1.

On Wednesday (12), for example, while the state of São Paulo pointed out that the city had registered 471 new cases of Covid, the municipality, in its bulletin, had registered 14,915 infections. The day before, Tuesday (11), the state entity pointed to 650 cases against 5,445. On Monday (10), 87 against 12,121.

The discrepancy remains when looking at the tables provided by the municipality.

Differences are also present in early December, with the city, on certain days, indicating more than a thousand cases and the state attributing to the municipality only a hundred.

The analysis of the second week from December to the end of the month is more complicated, because the Ministry of Health system suffered a cyber attack that jeopardized notifications of the pandemic, which may also have an impact on the data treated here.

In any case, according to the ministry, data platforms for cases were normalized in December.

At the moment, the country is experiencing an explosion of Covid cases and an increase in occupancy in ICU and wards across the country, after the arrival of the omicron variant.

The report questioned both the state and the municipality on the matter, which admitted there was a discrepancy.

According to the director of the State Epidemiological Surveillance Center, Tatiana Lang, the difference between the data that are made public has already been observed and municipal and state technicians are working on adjustments.

Lang says that one possibility for the difference would be for the municipality to be expanding the identification mechanisms of what defines a confirmed case of Covid. The director says that the state only takes into account the classifications considered by the Ministry of Health.

According to the folder, the classification of a confirmed case can be based on clinical, clinical-epidemiological, clinical-image and laboratory criteria.

The municipal daily bulletin, however, points out these same possibilities for classifying a case as Covid.

“They reclassified their cases and created other classifications that are not the ones recommended,” says Lang. “We need to study whether in fact this case has sufficient criteria to be closed as a confirmed case.”

Covid data in Brazil is recorded through E-SUS Notifica and Sivep-Gripe. The first is intended for mild cases, and the second, for more severe cases and hospitalizations.

Although the ministry and several states, including São Paulo, point out that notification by these systems has been normalized, public access to the data remains unavailable.

In a note, the Municipal Health Department of São Paulo states that the confirmed cases in the city refer to laboratory, clinical-epidemiological, clinical and clinical-imaging diagnoses.

“The City of São Paulo, through the Municipal Health Department (SMS), reinforces that the database has already been revised and that the folder only performs classifications within the recommended by the Ministry of Health”, said the municipality, in a note.

“The SMS adds that, on January 5, the Basic Health Units (UBSs) in the capital began testing against Covid-19 at the time of screening. From this date, to date, 106,632 rapid tests against Covid-19 have been carried out. , with 37,314 positive tests”, says the note sent to the report.

The number of positive tests only in the municipality of São Paulo indicated by SMS is higher than the data released by São Paulo as referring to the entire state in the same period of time (from January 5th to 13th).

According to the vehicle consortium, in this period there would have been 30,240 cases of Covid in the state. The consortium uses information provided by the states themselves on platforms or in epidemiological bulletins (as is the case in São Paulo).

The municipal secretariat also states that it uses a script (code) for data processing that reclassifies cases based on criteria and definitions from the Ministry of Health. more real the current moment of the pandemic.”