Press Release / 29 May 2020
The number of daily confirmed cases has risen as a result of increased testing and the Department of Health’s (DOH) aggressive efforts to catch up on the testing backlog, according to Health OIC-Undersecretary Dr. Maria Rosario Singh-Vergeire.
In today’s Beat COVID-19 Virtual Presser, Singh-Vergeire discussed with public health epidemiologists the circumstances behind the new data and how the public can better understand the reality of the situation. “Gaya po ng naipaliwanag namin kahapon, hindi ito nangangahulugan na lumalala ang sitwasyon ng COVID-19 sa bansa,” she noted.
Noting the 539 cases that were reported on May 28, Singh-Vergeire said, “Out of these 539cases, 109 lamang po ang FRESH cases--mga kasong kakalabas lang ng laboratory resuts nila sa loobng tatlong araw na nakalipas. Uulitin ko po, 109 out of the 539 cases are those that were reported in the past three days,” she underscored.
“Ang balanse naman po na mahigit 400+ ay mga late cases, o mga kaso na ang mga resulta ay lumabas na noong nakaraan pang linggo pero dahil kahapon lang na-submit ng mga laboratory ang resulta, kaya kahapon lang din po sila na navalidate ng ating Epidemiology Bureau.”
The Health Spokesperson said that the validation process has sped up significantly over the past week as a result of an increase in disease surveillance officers due to the DOH’s mass hiring program. Additionally, the recent rollout of the COVIDKAYA information system, a fully automated data collection platform, has also helped the department receive fast live updates from hospitals and laboratories across the Philippines.
“Dahil dito, asahan natin na marami tayong mairereport na mga na validated na kaso sa mga susunod na araw,” said Singh-Vergeire.
Much of the reporting of COVID-19 cases has experienced a delay due to operational issues with the manual data collection. According to public health epidemiologist Dr. Troy Gepte, this delay needs to be taken into consideration when reading the numbers, because they do not translate to an increase in local transmission at that very moment.
“We need to keep in mind na may difference kung kailan namatay at nagka-onset ng symptoms, ”said Gepte. “May delays tayo on the testing and reporting so we need to emphasize that we have different cases as per reporting. Nangyayari na nava-validate yung data at may delay.”
Singh-Vergeire noted that with the bolstering of the nation’s COVID-19 data collection and information system, the DOH will be publishing the daily reports in a different format to better illustrate the variance between newly validated cases and late cases, or those included in the backlog for validation.
“Simula po ngayon ay hahatiin na po namin ang mga numero upang ipakita kung ilanang“FRESH” o newly validated cases kada araw, at ihihiwalay din po namin kung ilan ang mga “LATE” o nagmula lamang sa delayed reporting,” she revealed.
According to her, the DOH is confident that the Philippine situation is improving as indicators outside the raw number of newly confirmed cases are looking favorable. When observing the actual date of death and not the date of reporting, the deaths have been decreasing.
Case doubling time, or the time it takes for cases to increase twofold, has also slowed down from once every three to four days, to once every seven days. Singh-Vergeire reiterated that this is the case if the actual date of onset is observed.
“Maganda ang mga indikasyon ng mga numero, at sinasabi lamang nito na basta lahat tayo tulong-tulong, magbubunga ang ating mga paghihirap, pananatili sa bahay, at pagtitiyaga,” she concluded.