A study by the Ateneo De Manila University-Economics Department has shown that almost 3 million citizens may have acquired the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) from April to June without being detected or reported.
According to the writer, Jan Frederick Cruz, his study was based on a paper to know the gravity of the effect of underreporting in countries with a flourishing economy.
The methodology was used for the ASEAN 5 consisting of Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia with Singapore as the baseline due to its aggressive implementation of mass testing.
“Given that, we compared our own record of reported cases and reported deaths, and then using that, we extrapolate ano kaya ‘yung bilang nung baka hindi nadetect na (what may be the number of the undetected) COVID-19 cases. And again, these are just crude estimates, these are just ballpark computations.”
The research aimed to strengthen the mass testing policy in the country to alleviate the fight against COVID-19. It also concluded that it is not practical to extend the lockdown without mass testing since easing restrictions might only contribute to the spread of the virus.
“3 million by the way, it’s big but it’s 2.6 percent of the total population. It just so happens that in terms of percentage, it’s small, but we don’t know where they are. And here comes the argument for mass testing, we need to identify where these people are.”
Department of Health (DOH) Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire pointed out that “comparing countries, with different health system capacities and with different types of health systems is not really appropriate.”
Meanwhile, the DOH has reported the total of confirmed COVID-19 cases to 178,022, 114,114 recoveries and 2,883 deaths as of August 20, 2020. Report from Mark Fetalco
