Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

Q: Where is the data sourced from?

A: Data is sourced from daily media releases posted by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). See 'Sources' tab for a full list of acknowledgements.



Q: How often is the website updated?

A: The website is updated daily in line with media releases from the Department of Health and Human Servinces (DHHS).



Q: What time is the website updated?

A: Updates to the website are implemented within a few hours of these media releases, which typically occur between 7:45am – 4:00pm. You may follow me on Twitter to be notified when new updates are live.



Q: Why isn't displayed data consistent with the DHHS interactive map?

A: The DHHS interactive map is often inconsistent with the latest media releases published by the DHHS. CovidVictoria is updated in-line with the latest media releases published by the DHHS, which leads to discrepancies between the DHHS interactive map and the figures displayed on this website.



Q: What does LGA stand for?

A: LGA stands for 'Local Government Area', and denotes the administrative boundaries of locally governing City Councils and Shires.



Q: What does the positioning of clusters reveal about the intra-LGA residential address of notified cases?

A: All clusters are positioned in the geographical centre of their corresponding LGA for exposition purposes – their positioning reveals nothing about the exact intra-LGA residential addresses of notified COVID cases. The government does not publish the exact location of COVID cases.



Q: Why doesn't the sum total of clustered data points reconcile with figures in the summary panel?

A: The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) categorises reported cases of COVID-19 using residential address provided upon case notification. No geographic data point is plotted when a residential address is not provided; or when the provided residential address corresponds to an overseas/interstate location. However, these cases remain within the borders of Victoria, and are included in state-level totalled statistics.



Q: How are 'new cases' determined?

A: The total number of new cases (as presented in the summary panel) is calculated as the daily change in total confirmed COVID cases, adjusted for the DHHS' retrospective reclassifications of the previous day's figures due to erroneous duplication of notified cases. On a per-LGA basis, 'new cases' figures are calculated as the net daily change in confirmed COVID cases, and are not adjusted for retrospective reclassifications unless these relcassifications result in negative daily counts. These are set to zero for ease of interpretability.



Q: Why doesn't the 'Change (24 hrs)' figure match between active and confirmed layers for a given LGA?

A: The 'confirmed cases' measure should be thought of as a running total of all COVID cases recorded. When a COVID-affected citizen recovers, the total number of active cases decreases for the corresponding LGA, however the total number of confirmed cases remains unchanged. This leads to discrepancies between the 24-hour change figures for a given LGA across active and confirmed layers.

24-hour change (active cases) = new cases - recoveries - reclassifications

24-hour change (confirmed cases) = new cases - reclassifications

Q: What does a negative 'Change (24 hrs)' figure imply with reference to confirmed cases?

A: Each day, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) adjust for erroneous duplication of recorded cases by reclassifying a proportion of new cases announced in their previous media release. In this context, a negative 24-hour change figure implies that the number of reclassifications in the previous 24 hours exceeds the number of new cases recorded in the previous 24 hours.



Q: What data is used to calculate population metrics?

A: Population metrics are calculated based on estimated resident population (ERP) as at 30 June 2019, as reported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). You may access the relevant ERP report here.



Q: What does the pink/purple shading represent?

A: Pink/purple shading is unrelated to COVID data, and comes from a cosmetic overlay that reflects varying levels of foliage.