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Collin County Commissioners discuss the county’s COVID-19 dashboard at their August 17 meeting. (Screenshot courtesy of Collin County)
Collin County plans to add a disclaimer to its COVID-19 dashboard stating that the county has no confidence in the accuracy of the data currently provided by the State Department’s health services. Texas.
Collin County Commissioners decided to add the disclaimer to its scorecard during a discussion on August 17 over the backlog of coronavirus test results submitted by several commercial labs to DSHS last week .
As overdue test results are added to the electronic reporting system, some counties are receiving notification of positive COVID-19 results that have been previously diagnosed but have not been reported to the local health department at the time of the test has been carried out. For this reason, statewide confirmed case counts and some county case counts have recently included older cases. DSHS works daily with laboratories to facilitate reports to ensure that local jurisdictions receive laboratory reports in a timely manner. Patients were informed at the time of diagnosis through a separate process, according to state officials.
DSHS already includes a warning on its dashboard for Collin County as well as one for Texas which states that “all data is provisional and subject to change.”
County administrator Bill Bilyeu also said the state does not collect data on county recoveries and does not remove active cases with the same frequency as Collin County.
“My level of confidence in these numbers was already zero, so now that we are 100% convinced that they are inaccurate, I think we are doing our community a disservice by posting these numbers and saying, this is what happening in Collin County, ”Collin County Judge Chris Hill said.
Hill initially brought forward a motion to completely remove the COVID-19 dashboard from the county’s website, but later withdrew the motion after further discussions with commissioners.
Commissioner Susan Fletcher proposed adding the disclaimer to the dashboard.
“Collin County is providing COVID-19 numbers and data for the convenience of our residents,” Fletcher said in his motion. “However, as we have been made aware of the inaccuracy of the state’s reports, we must advise that Collin County has no confidence in the accuracy of the data currently provided by the state.”
His motion was then approved 4-0. Commissioner Duncan Webb was absent from the meeting.
Bilyeu said there was a limited amount of space on the dashboard and suggested adding the disclaimer as the main image on the middle block where business cards by city and codes are currently located. postal. These cards can still be clicked by users.
The county administrator also suggested changing the source of local deaths to DSHS to be consistent with the rest of the dashboard. As of Aug. 17, the county scorecard was reporting 100 deaths from Collin County’s health departments, but that agency does not have access to death certificates for people who died outside the county, Bilyeu said. The DSHS has this access, but Bilyeu said he did not believe the state agency had received all of the county’s death certificates as the state dashboard reported 90 deaths on August 17.
The commissioners agreed to the change and had another discussion on the accuracy of the scoreboard in the near future.
Collin County previously transferred management of all new COVID-19 case investigations and contact tracings to DSHS’s Texas Health Trace system on June 1.
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