The line list dataset from Argentina provides 25 metadata fields for each patient. These include a unique ID (‘id_evento_caso’) which helps track each case through time (e.g., from symptom onset to hospitalisation). Two different types of geographic metadata are provided, namely residencial geographic information provided at the country, province, and department levels (‘residencia_pais_nombre’, ‘residencia_provincia_nombre’, ‘residencia_departamento_nombre’, respectively), as well as geographic information to province level of where the confirmatory COVID-19 test was carried out (‘carga_provincia_nombre’). The residential geographical information is used for location of the case in all instances where this is provided because it includes a higher level of geographic detail; when this information is missing or the residential country is not Argentina, the test location is used to provide the geographic information of the case. When the country of residence is other than Argentina, travel in the past 30 days is assumed and the country added as part of case-associated travel history.

The date of diagnosis (‘fecha_diagnostico’) is provided in 93.46% of cases and is used as the date of confirmation of the patient in our database. In cases where this is missing, date of symptom onset (‘fecha_inicio_sintomas’) is used in lieu; when neither date of diagnosis nor date of symptom onset are provided, date of case opening is used (‘fecha_apertura’). We indicate which field is used in the notes field of the global.health database. The dataset contains some dates which are not realistic (e.g. date of diagnosis given as years 2001 and 2012). The global.health ingestion process will automatically ignore cases which are earlier than the earliest allowed date of 1st November 2019. In addition, according to the WHO the first COVID-19 case in Argentina was detected on March 3rd 2020, but the dataset contains a small number of cases with a confirmation date before this but after the earliest allowable date (i.e. between 1st November 2019 and 3rd March 2020). 

Whether the patient has been hospitalized is indicated solely by the presence or absence of a date of hospitalization. ICU admission or death, however, are indicated in a binary field (‘cuidado_intensivo’ and ‘fallecido’, respectively), and further date information is provided in the ‘fecha_cui_intensivo’ and ‘fecha_fallecimiento’ fields, respectively. The date fields are left empty when no such information exists. When ICU admission and/or death are reported an associated date is reported 100 % of the time.

Importantly we are only ingesting cases classified (‘clasificacion_resumen) as confirmed, amounting to >4.1M cases out of >12.8M cases recorded in the dataset. >7.6M cases are currently listed as discarded. 

The dataset includes reporting on additional metadata details not commonly seen in other COVID-19 databases, including reporting on whether the patient was put under mechanical ventilation (‘asistencia_respiratoria_mecanica’), and whether the patient was treated through the public or private health system (‘origen_financiamiento’). Both were reported with 100% completeness.