After the change in the federal government system, SP has incomplete data on Covid-19 cases for a week | Sao Paulo

As a result, the number of new cases reported per day has decreased, raising the moving average to rates similar to those at the start of the pandemic, when testing capacity was still very low.

The new version of e-SUS Notifica was released on September 8, one day before the issue started. The National Council of Health Ministers (Kunas) confirmed to TV Globo, Tuesday (14) afternoon, that “some states had problems accessing the e-SUS Notifica API, due to instability”, but that “the problems have been resolved”. “.

As the Sao Paulo State Department of Health (SES-SP) reported on Tuesday, since the launch of the new version, “teams have been working on adequacy of operations that should be normalized this week.” Also according to the SES-SP, “It is noteworthy that the SP concentrates the largest volume of COVID-19 statistics in the country and, accordingly, has the largest database of necessary analysis and adjustments.”

The Sao Paulo government stated that there was no training for state technicians on the system’s new data mining operations, and that there was only one meeting on August 27. TV Globo has sought the Ministry of Health and is awaiting return.

Lowest moving average since April

The values ​​reported in the last week are lower than the notifications during the long vacation, which are generally lower than the weekdays due to the blockage of shift teams.

In Sao Paulo, for example, the average on Tuesday was 755 new cases. For comparison purposes, 14 days ago, on September 1, before the holiday and regime change, the average was 5,546 cases per day.

The variance represents a drop of 86%, the highest drop since the start of the pandemic, according to data released daily by the Media Consortium.

Sharp reduction should be viewed with suspicion, experts say

Although the epidemic situation in the state of São Paulo is currently at historically low levels of cases, hospitalizations and deaths, researcher Roberto Krinkle, professor at the Institute of Theoretical Physics of São Paulo State University (IFT-Unesp) and a member of Covid-19 BR explains that it should Look at every drop or rise with suspicion when the subject is the reproduction of an epidemic factor, such as the case of the novel coronavirus.

“We follow the trend in the number of cases, whether it is going up or growing or declining. However, when we have a very sudden change in the number of cases … if you have, say, six thousand cases, the next day you have 600 cases You should be skeptical about that,” he says.

“Usually these very sudden changes relate to a problem with the so-called notification system,” he says.

In the current case of São Paulo, for example, other data shows that the current level of new issues may not correspond to reality. The moving average of new admissions to Covid wards and intensive care units in public and private hospitals remains stable at between 620 and 640 new patients per day.

Indeed, the moving average of deaths, which suffered a decline due to blocking notifications during the long vacation, returned this Wednesday (15) to the level of early September, and reached 147 confirmed deaths per day.

The data access problem did not last long

Since the beginning of the pandemic, on other occasions, there have been days when no cases have been reported due to technical problems associated with federal regulations. But the problem did not last more than five days.

In November 2020, virus Detected on a ministry computer, increasing the security of systems, resulting in instability Upon arrival.

In March of this year, Change in the information system for the epidemiological surveillance of influenza (Sivep-Influenza), where serious cases and deaths from Covid are reported, Making new fields mandatory and making it difficult to include new patients. The request was reviewed by the Ministry of Health after protests by municipal and state administrators.

This time, the change included the way managers access the system and changes in several areas, such as the patient’s symptom domain, details of the case notification health unit, details of search strategies, and activity of suspected asymptomatic cases.

In addition, the Covid-19 case system is now integrated with the Covid-19 vaccination system, to add information to new cases whether or not a patient has been vaccinated.