DES MOINES, Iowa — Saturday night, many Iowans noticed data fluctuations on the Iowa Department of Public Health's (IDPH) coronavirus data website.
Deaths dropped by 200 at one point, and positive cases and recoveries dropped by about 10,000. Total tests done dropped by about 100,000.
Around 11:10 p.m., the data appeared back to normal. Local 5 reached out to IDPH to see what happened.
"A maintenance upgrade to the state's website caused the numbers to fluctuate temporarily," said IDPH spokeswoman Amy McCoy via email.
A closer look at the data
Looking closer at the data, Sara Willette knew something was still off. Willette has been tracking Iowa's COVID-19 data since the start of the pandemic.
Willette told Local 5 about her findings Sunday afternoon.
"I just got a message from one of my followers that a death got pulled from Cass County, as well as like 100 and something positives, and it hasn't come back," Willette said.
Willette said she didn't even get into county-level data before she discovered a statewide discrepancy.
"As it stands right now, the positives, recoveries and deaths by pre-existing condition and profession, that stuff is completely screwed."
There's a section on the state's website that provides detailed statistics on Iowans that have died from the virus. During the maintenance, 472 deaths were added to the "Unknown" jobs category, according to Willette.
That's not the end of it— Willette said a total of 408 deaths were subtracted from other categories. Here's the breakdown of those:
- 6 deaths from Manufacturing/industry
- 258 deaths from Retired
- 8 deaths from Health care worker/staff
- 11 deaths from Other adult
- 15 deaths from Unemployed/disabled
- 4 deaths from Food services
- 1 death from Business
- 1 death from Education
- 1 death from Works at home/stay at home parent
- 1 death from Farming
- 2 deaths from Transportation
Before the maintenance, there was only one death reported under "Education," now there are none.
Why does this matter?
Data collected by the IDPH is used to make decisions that impact every Iowan.
If data fluctuates on the website, it could impact how schools make decisions to go in-person or shift online. We've already seen how a glitch in the data can impact those decisions.
"This is the thing that bothers me the most," Willette said. "The state is acting like these numbers aren't humans. These are people. These are people that all of us know. Like, you can't be screwing with people's lives."
Moving forward
Local 5 reached out to the IDPH to ask why these numbers are adding up and to find out more on how the department conducts maintenance on their coronavirus website.
Local 5 will disclose that information once it's released.