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The Ministry of Health informs each day about the number of tests carried out for the coronavirus. This number is understated. And it’s very serious. Commercial laboratories are not required to report all tests performed, they only report the number of positive results.
- According to the Ministry of Health, tens of thousands of coronavirus tests are performed daily
- In fact, there are many more tests carried out, especially by commercial laboratories
- The act obliges us to report positive tests, not the number of tests performed – says the person running such a facility
- The number of positive COVID-15 tests at this facility is roughly 5%. all tests
- More current information can be found on the Onet homepage
During the day, over 83 thousand. coronavirus tests. 39 antigen tests have been performed, the Ministry of Health reported on April 342. However, these figures are severely understated.
Robert Królikowski, who runs a commercial laboratory in Nowy Sącz, wrote to the editorial office of MedTvoiLokony with the information that the Ministry of Health does not really know how many coronavirus tests are performed daily, because such information … does not require.
– Since October, we have been performing antigen tests by Abbott Panbio, one of the three WHO-registered swabs. The obligation to report positive results appeared in November. The act obliges us to report positive tests, not the number of tests performed – says Robert Królikowski from the Diagmed Private Healthcare Center in Nowy Sącz.
– We do not have a genetic laboratory that allows you to do PCR tests. We do not have an agreement with the National Health Fund, we do everything commercially. Mainly for the needs of people who want to go abroad and need confirmation that they are healthy. Hence the large number of tests performed after Christmas – people wanted to return to work and have a confirmed negative result – adds Królikowski.
Królikowski points out that when asked to the CeZ Support Team (Centrum eZdrowie) about the possibility of entering the number of tests into the system, the answer was “laboratories also commercially enter the results into EWP, so there is no need for additional collective reporting of the number of tests performed”.
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What is the order of undervaluing the number of tests? It is difficult to estimate it in the scale of the whole country, although the positive results from the factory in Nowy Sącz account for a few percent of all tests performed.
– In January, out of about 1500 downloads, we had 8 positive results. From last Tuesday to yesterday (April 12) we performed 1200 tests. And we only reported positive, it was roughly 8-12 cases a day. For example, today we have 52 downloads and 2 positive results. Yesterday we had 200 people on the tests and 8 positive results. From the beginning of April with the third wave, positive results represent about 5%. all downloads, he says – says Królikowski.
– It takes some time to enter one positive result into the database. To be able to introduce all cases, I would have to hire additional people, which would have an impact on the final price of each test – he adds.
Ministry of Health: data is collected by the Chief Sanitary Inspectorate
We asked the Ministry of Health on the basis of which data it provides the number of COVID-19 tests performed daily. Unfortunately, we got a reply, but not to the topic. From the e-mail sent by the Communication Office of the Ministry of Health, we learn that “from November 24, 2020, the institution responsible for collecting data is the Chief Sanitary Inspectorate”.
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And we got acquainted with the methodology of collecting data on infections and deaths.
“Methodology
1. Daily number of infected = number of people with a positive result reported by laboratories to the EWP system during the last XNUMX hours (people with a unique PESEL number)
2. Corrections – in the reporting system, in individual cases, the results may change retroactively as a result of the introduced corrections. Corrections may also apply to address data or personal data. Consequently, the global number of cases will be recalculated for each day, and the change in this value in a specific time period may not be equal to the sum of all new cases reported on each day of that period.
3. Positive results of antigen and commercial tests are included in the presented data on an ongoing basis.
4. Deaths include both the death of an individual from COVID-19 alone and the coexistence of COVID-19 with other diseases. In individual cases, after medical verification or re-reporting, the cause of death of a given person may be changed.
5. In daily reports, there are cases of reporting a positive result without being assigned to a specific voivodship and poviat, due to the lack of the patient’s address on the side of the laboratory. The indicated patients will be assigned to voivodships and poviats by sanitary and epidemiological stations ».
Therefore, we still do not know where the data on the performed tests come from and what the scale of underestimating these numbers is.
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