The Department of Health (DOH) clarified the increase in reported confirmed COVID-19 cases this week does not mean the COVID-19 situation has gone worse in the country. DOH USec. Maria Rosario Vergeire said out of the 539 new cases reported on Thursday, only 109 of them are fresh cases or those with results which have just been released within the past three days.
More or less 400 are considered late cases or those with results which have been released last week but were only validated by the DOH on Thursday.
Vergeire explained the spike is also brought about by the delay on the submission of results by laboratories.
“Itong linggo bumibilis ang validation dahil sa mga sumusunod na dahilan: Una nadagdagan ang ating disease surveillance officers na taga-encode ng cases. Pangalawa, tayo’y nagshi-shift to a fully automated platform, ang COVIDKAYA app, at maayos at mas mabilis na ang pasok ng ating mga datos (The validation this week has been speeding up due to the following factors: First, there are additional disease surveillance officers to encode cases. Second, we shifted to a fully-automated platform, the COVID KAYA app),” Vergeire explained.
The DOH announced it will split its reporting starting today, Friday, on the number of cases to show the number of fresh and late cases from delayed reporting.
Meanwhile, the number of licensed RT-PCR laboratories reached 37, while 11 GeneXpert facilities are now conducting COVID-19 tests in the country. – Report from Mark Fetalco
