County Health Department Moves To State COVID-19 Data As Cases Spike

As the number of COVID-19 cases balloons, officials from the Bucks County Health Department have become overwhelmed.

Over the past week, the county health department has shifted from their own in-house COVID-19 case data to the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s reporting system, which is called Pennsylvania’s Electronic Disease Reporting and ties in with a national database.

The state health data isn’t picked through as closely as the data previously compiled by county health workers. County officials have long stated that their numbers were more accurate.

County Health Department Director Dr. David Damsker told LevittownNow.com during an interview that the switch was needed as overwhelmed agency staffers focus on targeting COVID-19 cases and outbreaks, especially among more vulnerable elderly populations and schools.

“We are now moving to a more targeted response phase, focusing our efforts on schools and the elderly – areas where we can make the most difference in the community,” Damsker said.

Damsker said the county is switching to state-provided data for positive coronavirus cases, though he cautioned those numbers are not always an accurate reflection of confirmed cases.

Since the pandemic began earlier this year, Bucks County’s numbers have often been lower than those issued by the state. County officials explained that it was because local health department staffers were able to “clean” the data of duplicates, laboratory mistakes, former residents whose insurance information still is registered to a county address in databases, locals who might be residing out of the area temporarily, and college students who are residing on campus.

“We always had lower numbers because they were more accurate,” Damsker said.

Additionally, the state counts probable and rapid antigen test positives in their tally unlike Bucks County.

Damsker said he’s found the state numbers are often slightly higher and could be off by 10 to 15 percent, but he cautioned those numbers still show trends and provide important information.

The state’s death count numbers are also higher largely because the Pennsylvania Department of Health permits probable COVID-19 deaths, while the county has only counted cases that where COVID-19 was confirmed as the leading factor in the cause. As of last week, the state showed about 80 more COVID-19 deaths than Bucks County officials tallied.

“We were able to reduce the COVID death numbers by removing cases in which the decedent was infected at the time of death, but whose death was not significantly caused by the virus,” Damsker said.

Bucks County for months prided itself on being the only county local health department in the state to maintain consistent contact tracing, which led the county to detect trends and early signs of COVID-19, like impacts on a patients’ olfactory sense and ability to taste.

The county health department director said the massive uptick in cases caused his staff to not be able to keep up with contact tracing in recent weeks. Previously, the county had a higher than 95 percent contact tracing success rate.

“Contact tracing took so much work and it began to take such a toll on staff,” Damsker said.

“As the only health department in Pennsylvania to collect all of that data from day one, the effort to continue that intense level of inquiry when the caseloads are this high has now become overwhelming and, more importantly, impractical,” he said. “We know the epidemiology of COVID and we know how it spreads.”

Report a correction via email | Editorial standards and policies

---

---