Paul Starick: South Australia’s otherwise excellent response to the coronavirus is being let down by the inadequate release of vital public health data

Public confidence in South Australia's exemplary coronavirus response is being undermined by insufficient release of important information that people need to know.

Public confidence in South Australia's exemplary coronavirus response is being undermined by insufficient release of important information, including case locations, tracing and recovery.

Public confidence in South Australia's exemplary coronavirus response is being undermined by insufficient release of important information, including case locations, tracing and recovery.

SA might be leading the nation in testing rates and curbing case growth but it has fallen dramatically behind other states in giving important details about the pandemic.

The public concern about this information gap is a weak point in Premier Steven Marshall’s otherwise upfront, transparent and measured leadership during this global crisis.

This is evidenced by reader comments on The Advertiser’s story about SA Health’s limited data release, which revealed who has contracted the disease and where they got it in the first place.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this showed the typical coronavirus sufferer was a man in his 60s who had returned from overseas.

“Rubbery figures. Testing strategies/numbers/percentage different in each state. Reports of recovered not announced in SA. Surely FED govt should demand each state provide same data under same conditions,” one reader legitimately argued.

Health Minister Stephen Wade on Sunday said he was “very keen” to publish nationally consistent “heat maps” of case numbers and hoping they might be available within days.

“I noticed a couple of states have started publishing state-based data, but we value the idea of nationally consistent maps so that people, no matter where they are from, they can read and understand,” he said.

This is a surprisingly passive response to a thirst for public information, particularly at a localised level.

People in Noarlunga want information about their area as a priority, rather than waiting for a nationally consistent map including Newtown, in inner Sydney.

Detailed information about recovery rates and the number of negative tests, in particular, can help build public confidence and hope of getting through to the other side of this horrific pandemic.

There will be some argument that the public should be denied this information in the interests of maintaining impetus for tight social distancing controls.

But imposing needless secrecy is spurious and Stalinist, particularly given the evidence cited by the Premier that South Australians are not flocking to beaches or gathering in public like in some other states.

There are examples of data release from other states that can be followed now.

If resourcing is an issue, then skilled public servants can be diverted from non-essential areas to collate and publish statistics.

New South Wales, Queensland and Victorian health department websites all give detailed breakdowns of case numbers by local health regions and, mostly, by local government area.

In the virus’s national epicentre, NSW, there are data for the number of confirmed cases, tests, per cent positivity, and rates of cases and tests per 100,000 residents of each local health district.

The data for all three states include a breakdown for areas within each capital city, identifying confirmed coronavirus cases by distinct regions within the metropolitan areas.

By contrast, SA Health’s website lists: confirmed and suspected cases; an age and sex breakdown of confirmed cases; the number of tests and source of infection in confirmed cases of COVID-19 (overseas, interstate travel, close contact with confirmed case, contact not identified and under investigation).

As Mr Wade has said, there is great merit in releasing much more data. This is an extraordinary time requiring extraordinary measures, so our state should be showing leadership in data release, just as it has in testing and containment of this deadly disease.