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Data Reporting Assessment (Learn more about data quality assessments)

Last updated

When North Dakota reports no data, several days of data, or unusual data (such as decreases in values that should increase), our volunteers note it here on the date the anomaly occurred. We also note here changes in our own methodology that affect the data.

On March 7, 2021, North Dakota’s Total PCR tests (people) decreased by 75 and Negatives decreased by 109 without explanation.

On February 13, 2021 North Dakota's reported Total Tests (PCR) declined by 822 without explanation.

On February 10, 2021, North Dakota's Confirmed cases decreased by 32 due to an assessment of software malfunction.

On February 9, 2021, North Dakota’s Confirmed cases dropped by 62 due to an assessment of software malfunction, from 93,610 to 93,548. Additionally, their Cases (confirmed + probable) dropped by 11.

On February 6, 2021, North Dakota’s Confirmed cases decreased by 36 due to an assessment of software malfunction.

On December 30, 2020, North Dakota began reporting antigen in addition to PCR testing. From December 30, 2020 to January 3, 2021, we captured those numbers combined in our Total Tests (PCR) and Total Test Encounters (PCR) fields. On January 4, 2021, we began reporting these figures separately and revised our historical data to reflect the separate antigen and PCR numbers North Dakota provides.

On December 25, 2020, North Dakota announced on their COVID-19 dashboard that there would be no update to their data on December 25, 2020 due to the Christmas holiday. On January 1, 2020, they noted that there would be no update on January 1, 2020 due to the New Years holiday.

On December 15, 2020 through December 17, 2020, North Dakota announced that they were resolving a technical issue with their dashboard. As a result, the hospitalization dashboard was unavailable, and we were unable to update their Now in ICU, Ever hospitalized, and Ever in ICU metrics.

On December 10, 2020, we backfilled Confirmed cases, Probable Cases and Total cases from March 10, 2020 until December 9, 2020. We also cleared our Deaths (confirmed) and Deaths (probable) metrics because the number we reported as confirmed included antigen tested individuals.

On December 9, 2020, North Dakota began reporting Probable Cases, which it defines as individuals with a positive antigen test.

On December 8, 2020, North Dakota announced that they would not be updating their website due to site construction as they prepare to add antigen tests to their dashboard. As a result, we were unable to update their data on December 8, 2020.

On December 3, 2020, North Dakota stopped reporting patients Hospitalized with COVID on their COVID-19 dashboard to “eliminate the discrepancy” between patients Hospitalized with COVID and patients Hospitalized due to COVID. As of December 3, 2020, North Dakota’s Currently hospitalized will include only patients hospitalized due to COVID.

On December 1, 2020, we made changes to our historical deaths counts, changing our Deaths (confirmed) source from “Deaths Due to COVID-19” to “Total number of individuals who tested positive and died from any cause while infected with COVID-19.” We had originally switched to use “Deaths Due to COVID-19” on July 1, 2020, but because of growing backlogs of individuals with COVID-19 tests whose death certificates have not yet been filed were not being picked up in the figure, we switched back to best reflect the reality in the state. The change caused a 241 cumulative rise in North Dakota’s death figures.

On October 8, 2020, North Dakota released two figures describing those who are currently hospitalized. According to the state dashboard annotation, the "Hospitalized with COVID" figure describes those whose main reason for hospitalization is COVID-19, and it also includes all those who are "Hospitalized due to COVID". We are using the "Hospitalized with COVID" figure for our Currently hospitalized and Currently in ICU metrics, however there are not matching Cumulative metrics so we are using the "Due to COVID" Cumulative hospitalized and ICU figures.

On November 12, 2020, North Dakota explained that higher than normal fluctuations may be seen in data from the week of November 9, 2020, due to a software issue which has been resolved.

On November 12, 2020, North Dakota announced on their COVID-19 dashboard that the high number of tests and positives was due in part to 5600 test backlog experienced by a third-party lab.

On November 11, 2020, North Dakota reported two days of data for all metrics except for Total PCR tests (specimens), Confirmed cases, and Positive cases (confirmed + probable).

On November 10, 2020, North Dakota reported that their software for hospitalization metrics was down, an issue which also impacts active cases. We updated Total PCR tests (specimens), Confirmed cases, and Positive cases (confirmed + probable) from their daily news release.

As of September 11, 2020, North Dakota’s total test results reflect total test encounters. The number of unique people tested is available in our API as totalTestsPeopleViral.

On September 9, 2020, North Dakota began reporting “Susceptible Encounters” on its dashboard, which are defined as test encounters excluding those who have tested positive after the first time. We have begun recording the value in our Total PCR tests (test encounters) field.

On August 19, 2020, North Dakota launched a new dashboard with a number of new data points, including race and ethnicity data and ICU data.