Updates to our COVID-19 reporting

Public Health Scotland (PHS) has undertaken work to update its COVID-19 reporting process, ensuring it continues to provide the most accurate and timely information. As a result, some changes will be reflected in the data reported from today, 28 of July, on our COVID-19 Daily Dashboard.

These changes provide better identification of cases, and linkage to other sources such as deaths and hospital admissions following a positive test.

Small differences in the cumulative positive and negative case numbers and locally allocated neighbourhood reporting as well as a one off increase in reported deaths can be observed in today’s dashboard update. A one off increase in reported hospital admissions will be reported in tomorrow’s dashboard update on 29th July. These changes relate to historic cases and does not mean that there has been a recent increase.

Today’s new cases reported in the last 24 hours, will include a small proportion of cases notified between 12am and 5:15am on 27 July that would have been reported in yesterday’s daily figures. This is due to the transition to a new reporting schedule including cases up to 12am on day of reporting. There is no double counting in the cumulative totals reported today.

Reporting continues to reflect a snapshot in time. The source data are dynamic, and additional test results received will be reflected in future calculations of cases. This means figures reported on a daily basis may see small changes retrospectively.

The changes outlined above are not reflected in our weekly COVID-19 statistical report published today, but will be seen in next week’s report due out 4th August.
Scott Heald, Interim Director for Data Driven Innovation and Head of Profession for statistics at PHS said:

“As Scotland’s national public health body and a provider of official statistics, PHS strives to be data and intelligence led and a trusted source by continually working to improve statistics and data for the public good. The updates we’re making from today are just one of the ways we’re doing this as it simplifies and streamlines our reporting processes, and those of our partners.

“The changes implemented also provide a number of benefits for future reporting as the data can be accessed by both PHS and all NHS Boards in Scotland meaning a single version of the data is used by all. This is especially important to ensure we continue to provide accurate, consistent and timely information.”

More information on the improvements reflected in today’s figures can be found in the Notes tab of the COVID-19 Daily Dashboard.