Massive drop in active COVID-19 cases attributed to data error, say officials

BC’s Ministry of Health is attempting to clarify the significant drop in the number of active COVID-19 cases reported by officials on Tuesday.

While announcing an additional 96 new cases, officials reported that the active case count had plummeted from 2,083 to 1,465 over the past 24-hours.

That decrease of 618 is by far the sharpest recorded decline since the start of the pandemic.

96 new cases of #COVID19 were announced in B.C. today.

But due to Vancouver Coastal Health suddenly adding 500 recovered cases they hadn't been notifying the public about, active cases drop drastically to 1,465.

No new deaths, hospitalizations are flat.

Today's chart. pic.twitter.com/SHNEFwVtcg

— Justin McElroy (@j_mcelroy) September 23, 2020

Previously, the highest number of recoveries announced in a single day was 121 cases back in March.

According to the Ministry, the Vancouver Coastal Health region wasn’t releasing accurate information on recoveries over an extended period of time.

“The large shift in today’s total recovered cases reflects Vancouver Coastal Health’s delay in notifying BCDC of recovered cases in the last month, while they transitioned to a new data collection system” read a statement from the Ministry.

“The system is now fully implemented and the data is up to date. All cases were assessed and cleared by Public Health from isolation at the appropriate time.”

Of Tuesday's 96 new cases, 43 were from the Fraser Health Authority, 39 were from Vancouver Coastal Health, 11 were in Norther Health and three were from the Interior Health region.