Crucial provincial data that could track the spread of the novel coronavirus, as well as who has it, is missing from statistics released Tuesday by the Ontario government.

More than 60 per cent of the confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the database, released on the province’s Open Data website, don’t list how the virus was transmitted. Age and gender is missing for around half the cases and about 40 per cent of cases don’t include the outcome, which refers to whether a patient was in hospital or self-isolation, among other things.

Part of the disparity may be due to who is doing the testing, which has expanded outside of Public Health Ontario’s laboratory to hospital labs.

“Non-Public Health Ontario labs do not receive the same level of detail obtained by Public Health Ontario’s lab, such as age and gender,” said Hayley Chazan, spokesperson for health minister Christine Elliott, in an email. The public health lab is affiliated with the provincial government.

Information may also be missing as cases continue to be investigated by local health agencies.

“While we make every effort to co-ordinate and validate our case numbers with local public health units, there may in some cases be a lag in information sharing at the time of posting,” said Chazan. “In those instances, we report information as pending (or not reported) and update as provided by local public health units.”

Investigation of cases by agencies, including Toronto Public Health (TPH), is ongoing.

“When a positive COVID-19 case is confirmed in Toronto, we immediately begin an investigation to interview the person and determine where they may have gotten the infection and identify their close contacts,” Vinita Dubey, associate medical officer of health for Toronto Public Health, wrote in an email. “Contact tracing is a critical part of our response for COVID-19.”

The information takes time to gather, but it is also getting harder to track.

“When we first became aware of COVID-19, travel was the main risk factor for transmission because the virus was not spreading locally,” said Dubey. “However, COVID-19 is now being acquired locally and in some cases we are therefore unable to determine the source.

“This is why we continue to recommend for people to stay home.”

TPH continues to train and add staff resources from across the agency to help with the work.

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Here’s a breakdown of what we know so far about the 588 confirmed cases in the province:

Toronto Star graphics by Nathan Pilla