HOUSTON — Every day Houston releases new COVID-19 data. It usually includes the number of positive cases, deaths and recoveries. But those numbers are not instant. There is a lag time.
KHOU 11 Investigates did data analysis and found, on average, during the week of May 11, the death cases released were 18 days old.
Houston Medical Director Dr. David Persse said there are several factors at play that can cause a delay in reporting those numbers.
Hospitals have 10 days to file death certificates, Persse said, and that is when the health department typically learns someone has died of COVID-19. But sometimes, lab results come in later, and that creates a lag.
"Those delays can sometimes distort one’s perception of reality," Persse said. “Whenever there's a lag ... When you look at the graph or the last five to 10 days, they'll look like the numbers are maybe coming down. But if you look at those same days, a week later, you'll see that the numbers were higher because you go back. We fill them in for the day and it changes the slope for that day."
KHOU 11 Investigates reviewed Houston Health Department death cases and found as of May 13, on average, 11.5 days go by before a COVID-19 death is made public.
Of the 104 deaths reported so far, 65 took longer than a week to report, 38 took longer than two weeks and 17 took longer than three weeks.
But not all counties share the same lag issue.
Galveston County has one of the highest death rates in the region with 29 deaths. It takes them an average of two days to make the deaths public.
Persse said the large number of testing locations in Houston, including four FEMA sites, means it takes longer to process those results.
But Persse said the pace is about to pick up.
“We've now created a program where we are matching using the computers, to match to see if there are any names in the death records and a positive test result with the same name. And we got to make sure we are talking about the same person,” Persse said.
Persse added that while there can be a lag in reporting numbers, it doesn’t change the trends in numbers that leaders are closely watching.
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