Adjustment to Hamilton’s daily COVID case numbers due to unspecified ‘fluctuations’
Hamilton public health reported one new COVID death Sunday and removed a number of cases from the city's tally.
One person in their 60s died as of 3 p.m., Saturday. It is unknown if the death is linked to an outbreak because the city no longer provides this information.
In its daily update, the city reported -21" new cases. It is unclear what happened to those cases, which bring Hamilton's total from the pandemic to 9,745 cases, down from a previous 9,766.
Public health did not clarify in an email Sunday.
Case numbers are always subject to change and that fluctuations are normal with any data reporting," said the statement from James Berry, a spokesperson for the city public health department. Some reasons for daily case fluctuations include ongoing investigation and data collection, case transfers between health units, error detection and linking (and) unlinking cases to outbreaks.
Hamilton Public Health Services continues to encourage everyone to focus on the trends we are seeing in the community to inform their decision-making rather than single day data fluctuations."
The adjusted tally follows a jump by 105 new cases reported on Saturday - the highest rise in three weeks.
It is unclear if any new COVID cases were reported Sunday because of public health's change to the data.
It is also unclear if more than 21 cases were removed from the records.
One new case was reported in the city's list of outbreaks Sunday.
Queen's Garden long-term-care home at 80 Queen St. N. reported its sixth resident case. No new outbreaks were reported.
The city is now reporting 283 active cases compared to 347 on Saturday.
Thirty-eight new cases were resolved and four were added to the other" category, which represents cases public health couldn't locate or which were tracked by a different health authority.
The outbreak at the Wellington retirement home on the Mountain was declared over Friday. The outbreak at Arrell Youth Centre Section 19 Program in Hannon North was declared over Saturday.
Maria Iqbal's reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative. The funding allows her to report on stories focused on aging issues. Reach her via email: miqbal@thespec.com.