January 21, 2022 - One week ago the Texas Department of State Health Services announced an update to the Covid-19 Dashboard and a move away from reporting estimated number of active cases and estimate number of recoveries. Since then, the dashboard is only reporting the total number of cases and fatalities.
The number of confirmed cases and probable cases changed drastically after the update as the state was revising case totals to account for final 2020 case numbers. According to the press release, year-end data cleanup is a standard part of public health reporting.
The numbers published after the update and just prior to the update were as follows:
January 14th Numbers:
Confirmed Cases - 2,310
Probable Cases - 1,320
Fatalities - 115
Year - 2020-2022
January 13th Numbers: The last reported numbers before the update to the Dashboard.
Confirmed Cases - 2,002
Probable Cases - 1,495
Fatalities - 115
Active Cases (Estimated) - 438
Recovered (Estimated) - 2,945
The change moved an unknown number of cases from Probable to Confirmed. The difference between Confirmed and Probable cases is the type of test given. Confirmed cases are a person who has tested positive through a molecular test that looks for the virus’s genetic material. Probable cases are a person who has either tested positive through an antigen test or has a combination of symptoms and a known exposure to someone with COVID-19 without a more likely diagnosis.
The combined total number of cases (Confirmed and Probable) on January 13 was 3,497. The combined total number of cases on January 14 was 3,630 for a difference of 133 new cases reported that day.
For the week, since January 14th, a total of 251 new cases were reported and 2 new deaths.
January 21st Numbers: (Changes since Jan. 14)
Confirmed Cases - 2,453 (143 new)
Probable Cases - 1,428 (108 new)
Fatalities - 117 (2 new)
DSHS updates COVID-19 dashboard with final 2020 data
Expanded demographic data to be available
January 14, 2022 Press Release - With Friday’s update to the Texas COVID-19 data dashboard, the Texas Department of State Health Services is revising case totals to account for final 2020 case numbers. DSHS reported a total of 1,620,499 confirmed and 182,983 probable cases to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 2020. As of today, statewide and county numbers will be adjusted to reflect those final totals. The dashboard will be down for a period of time Friday afternoon as the updates are made.
Year-end data cleanup is a standard part of public health reporting. Epidemiologists review case information to weed out cases that may have been reported multiple times or by different jurisdictions, identify cases that may have been missed, verify cases are assigned to the right county, and ensure cases are classified correctly as either confirmed or probable. Any errors are corrected, and the result is the most accurate accounting of disease cases possible. Until the finalization process is complete and data reported to the CDC, all public health data is considered provisional and subject to change.
DSHS is also making dashboard improvements, including allowing users to filter by year and enhancing the demographic information available. Data that shows disease cases by sex, age and race/ethnicity will include all Texas cases reported into the National Electronic Disease Surveillance System. Until now, demographic data has only been available for a small subset of cases. Users will also be able to view monthly demographics for COVID-19 cases and deaths, and a future update will add rate calculations. DSHS is removing the estimates of active and recovered cases because of the difficulty of assigning them to a specific year.
The final 2020 data increases the total number of confirmed and probable Texas cases by about one-half of one percent. Individual counties may see larger changes. Most are due to a combination of de-duplicating cases reported multiple times, correcting the county of residence, or correcting the classification of the case, for example, when a person who was initially a probable case got additional testing and became a confirmed case.
DSHS will continue to update the dashboard daily with the latest available information and make improvements in data collection and display over time.
