Democracy Digest: Lies, Damned Lies and COVID-19 Statistics

The glaring difference in the numbers was, it turns out as reported by the SME daily, the result of the authorities only including data from PCR tests in their reports of positive cases. They ignored data from the rounds of national mass testing done with antigen tests, which found 30,000 active cases in January alone.

But when it came to compiling data on those who have recovered from COVID-19, officials included results from both types of testing. If this were to continue, the newspaper's investigation highlighted, Slovakia would eventually end up with a higher number of people who have recovered from COVID-19 than those actually infected.

The flawed data published by the government was also picked up by the likes of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and Worldometers, a global reference point for online data on the pandemic. "If you want to know what an international embarrassment looks like, well this is it," Kollar wrote in his post.

Following Kollar's revelation, the distorted numbers were removed with remarkable speed and little fuss. There followed a blame game of epic proportions between the National Centre for Health Information, the Ministry of Investment, Regional Development and Informatization, and the private company running the ministry's COVID-19 online platform.

With no one willing to take the fall, the scandal seems to have been swept under the rug with a pledge from all parties to change the way that coronavirus data will be reported in the future, reported SME.

In Poland, the number of diagnosed COVID-19 infections is on the rise again, reaching 8,000 daily this week. This is still far below the peak numbers of 20,000-plus that Poland was confronted with in the autumn, but the health...