WASHINGTON — Since the beginning of the pandemic, decisions big and small have been guided by the numbers.
From determining public health policies to deciding whether or not to go to a party, people have come to rely on COVID-19 data that comes from local health departments.
A viewer reached out to the VERIFY team after noticing something unusual.
“Why have new cases and deaths not been reported for the past month in Maryland," the viewer asked in an email.
Let's VERIFY.
THE QUESTION:
Is it true that Maryland hasn’t been updating their COVID case and death data in December?
THE SOURCES:
- Maryland Department of Health- tweets, press releases and updates
- Andy Owen- spokesperson for the Maryland Department of Health
THE ANSWER:
It is true that some of MDH's COVID data took weeks to update—including daily case and death statistics—following a "network security incident." It took a few weeks, but as of Dec. 23, MDH says 90% of their website's statistics are up to date.
WHAT WE FOUND:
Earlier this month, the Maryland Department of Health said their data reporting was disrupted by a "network security incident."
"On Dec. 4, MDH detected unauthorized activity involving its network infrastructure systems," a Dec. 20 press statement said. "As a result, MDH servers were taken offline and an investigation into the incident and restoration of impacted systems ensued."
On December 6, the agency tweeted that the servers would remain offline out of "an abundance of caution."
Since then the agency has made progress on getting its site up to date:
- On December 15: the agency said their COVID data was partially restored
- On December 20: they resumed reporting statewide confirmed case data, MDH said
- On December 23: they said 90% of the state-level surveillance data was back up
- On December 28: confirmed and probable death data was updated, according to Andy Owen, an MDH spokesperson
But besides the network issues holidays have also impacted reporting. The agency paused reporting on December 24 and 25 and will pause on December 31 and January 1 in celebration of the holidays.
So we can Verify, it's true that updated case data was out for roughly two weeks, and death data for about three weeks.