Correspondence The need for detailed the pandemic and to guide policy.3 3 Pearce N, Vandenbroucke JP, VanderWeele TJ, Greenland S. Accurate statistics on COVID-19 Furthermore, examining differences COVID-19 data in Spain between countries is crucial for gauging are essential for policy guidance and decisions. Published Online Am J Public Health 2020; 110: 949–51. The COVID-19 epidemic has the impact of different preventive 4 Pearce N, Lawlor DA, Brickley EB. Comparisons October 9, 2020 between countries are essential for the control https://doi.org/10.1016/ impacted the population of Spain health policies, and for designing better of COVID-19. Int J Epidemiol 2020; published S2468-2667(20)30234-6 far more than most feared or policies that would reduce the health online June 29. https://doi.org/10.1093/ ije/dyaa108. projected. As of Sept 25, 2020, more risks associated with COVID-19.4 than 700 000 individuals had tested In Spain, COVID-19 data currently positive, and more than 31 000 deaths published at the country and regional with a positive test had been recorded.1 levels are insufficient to understand Earlier in this pandemic, the Spanish the dynamics of COVID-19 and to Ministry of Health provided data by take action. We now urge the health age and sex for the whole country in authorities in charge of COVID-19 its daily COVID-19 situation updates data in Spain and elsewhere to release (in Adobe PDF format), as well as daily consistent daily open data updates data on total hospitalisations, intensive on tests, cases, hospitalisations, care unit admissions, discharges, and intensive care unit admissions, deaths by region. However, since recoveries, and deaths, including May 19, 2020, disaggregated data ongoing retrospective series have not been provided in the daily corrections. Each of these variables updates.1 In recent months, data should be broken down by age, sex, improvements have been made by and geographic detail, to better the National Centre of Epidemiology monitor the demographic impacts of (CNE), and open data on total counts the pandemic, and to better inform a by region are updated and revised public health response. daily.2 However, at the time of writing, CP received a grant from the Catalan Government age-specific data from the CNE is given for monitoring the post-lockdown COVID-19 process in Catalonia (Spain). All other authors only in weekly publications (as Adobe declare no competing interests. ST-L gratefully PDF files), without geographic detail acknowledges funding from the European Research or retrospective corrections, and with Council (ERC-2019-CoG-GA No 864616-HEALIN project). cumulative counts tabulated only from mid-May onwards. Therefore, properly Copyright © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the merging age-specific time series after CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. the first wave is difficult or impossible. We recognise that, in the first *Sergi Trias-Llimós, Ainhoa Alustiza, instance, COVID-19 data depends on Clara Prats, Aurelio Tobias, Tim Riffe strias@ced.uab.cat the 17 autonomous communities of Spain. Five of these independently Center for Demographic Studies, Centres de Recerca de Catalunya (CERCA), Bellaterra 08193, offer selected COVID-19 metrics Spain (ST-L); Max Planck Institute for Demographic disaggregated by age and sex, but Research, Rostock, Germany (AA, TR); Departament the data provided are not always de Física, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Castelldefels, Spain (CP); and Institute of comparable across these few regions. Environmental Assessment and Water Research The urgency of this pandemic has (IDAEA), Spanish Council for Scientific Research pushed several countries worldwide (CSIC), Barcelona, Spain (AT) (such as the Netherlands, Germany, 1 Centro de Coordinación de Alertas y Emergencias Sanitarias. Actualización no 215. the Philippines, and Mexico) to openly Enfermedad por el coronavirus (COVID-19). release coherent and exhaustive daily Sept 25, 2020. https://www.mscbs.gob.es/ profesionales/saludPublica/ccayes/ updates of detailed COVID-19 cases alertasActual/nCov/documentos/ and deaths, including disaggregations Actualizacion_215_COVID-19.pdf by age group, sex, and geographical (accessed Sept 29, 2020). 2 Centro Nacional de Epidemiología. Datos area, as well as ongoing retrospective notificados a la Red Nacional de Vigilancia corrections in machine-readable Epidemiológica (RENAVES). 2020. https://cnecovid.isciii.es/ data files. Accurate and detailed covid19/#documentaci%C3%B3n-y-datos data are essential for understanding (accessed Sept 29, 2020). www.thelancet.com/public-health Vol 5 November 2020 e576