Defence shifts COVID-19 cases offshore – without explanation

After literally months of reporting COVID-19 numbers broken down by the geography of where the “confirmed” case was detected, Defence moved 34 cases ‘overseas’ this afternoon – without explanation.

For example, beancounters in the ACT were delighted when, sometime after 12.07pm* today, Defence changed the number of ADF cases detected in the ACT from 5 to zero – despite the ACT consistently showing as 5 “confirmed” Defence cases since the fifth case was added on 4 April last year.

Also today, Queensland’s numbers were reduced from 11 to 1 (after hitting 11 exactly a month ago)– New South Wales was reduced from 19 to just 7 (after hitting 19 on 14 January and surpassing 7 nearly 11 months ago) – South Australia dropped from 7 to 2 (after hitting 7 over the Christmas standdown) – and Victoria went down from 19 to 16 (after hitting 19 on 1 September last year).

The total number of cases hasn’t changed from 165 and Defence’s math is correct – which means someone gained cases they didn’t know they had, thanks to Defence’s sudden and unexplained accounting re-org.

The upward movers were Western Australia, changed from 1 to 2 – and ‘overseas’ jumped from 102 to 136.

EDITOR’S NOTE: *12.07pm was the last time we screenshot the Defence COVID-19 page, which we do several times a day because we’ve come to distrust Defence’s reporting – e.g. today’s massive numbers reshuffle without explanation.

And, if you’re wondering how we know when each state hit their previous marks – we’re keeping a chronological list of all Defence cases (because Defence isn’t). Defence  simply edits the same page day in and day out, losing the historical value/cross-reference-ability of the previous days’ figures.

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