The backlog shows a 70% increase in cases and a statistical inconsistency. 

By Aaron B. Comforty

 

 

 

Updated: February 11th, 2021

Indiana University Bloomington added more than 3,200 previously unreported positive Covid-19 test results to it’s Covid-19 dashboard website on Wednesday, February 3rd. The batch of unreported cases brings Indiana University’s flagship Bloomington campus’ all-time Covid-19 case count to 7,593, a 70% increase. It remains to be seen whether Monroe County, which is home to the university, will add any of the roughly 3,200 cases to its own case total.

 

Students wait in line to take the rapid "spit test" at a Covid-19 testing site in a university gymnasium. By the start of the 2021 winter semester, a total of 7,083 students had tested positive at the university's Bloomington campus, about 14.5% of the student body.

 

Days before the university published the backlogged cases, WFHB reported that Indiana University Bloomington’s all-time case count stood at about 4,200. Associate Vice President for Enterprise Systems at Indiana University, Aaron Neal, confirmed WFHB's 4,200 cases figure in a February 4th email, noting "We agree that the previously published positive numbers totaled roughly 4,200... The difference between the 4,200 and 7,593 are made of Voluntary Testing Positives... [and] Other known cases – 3,126."

 

The explanation Vice President Aaron Neal provided clarifies where the newly reported cases come from, but the numbers don't seem to add up perfectly. Indiana University Spokesperson, Dr. Chuck Carney, wrote in an email to WFHB, "As you can imagine, building such a project from scratch presents challenges, and changes, such as we have made, can result in finding some things to shore up."

 

Testing site staff  prepare to test thousands of students at an Indiana University Covid-19 testing site in the football stadium parking lot. The university rested much of its fall semester Covid-19 mitigation strategy on its large scale testing operation.

 

On February 3rd, 2021, the university revamped its dashboard to include a number of new sections, features, and statistics. One of them was an "all-time" cases figure. Previously, the university opted to separate the all-time cases figure into three distinct testing categories, in effect obscuring the all-time case count. The university’s approach to its dashboard varied significantly from the State of Indiana’s dashboard, which has had an all-time case count since the early days of the pandemic.

 

Vice President Aaron Neal also indicated that the majority of the roughly 3,200 newly reported cases come from a section titled, “Other Known Cases.” An explanation in the university's Covid-19 dashboard describes the contents of the Other Known Cases section in the following terms, “Students, faculty, and staff are required to self-report all positive COVID-19 test results obtained outside of IU testing mechanisms.” The cases in that section consist of those "outside" positive test results.

Indiana University's Covid-19 dashboard shows statistical inconsistencies in the number of reported cases.