Delays in COVID reporting ‘normal’, DOH-6 says

By Joseph B.A. Marzan

 

The Department of Health-Western Visayas Center for Health Development (DOH-WV CHD) on Thursday clarified that the usual time for verifying and reporting confirmed cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is within two days.

This, after the DOH central office on Wednesday announced in its daily COVID-19 bulletin that testing numbers reported in their case bulletins will be based on the output from accredited laboratories “two days ago”, to “minimize confusion arising from reporting incomplete data”.

DOH-WV CHD Infectious Diseases Cluster Head Dr. Mary Jane Juanico explained to Daily Guardian via phone interview that the numbers reported in the national tally usually take 24 to 48 hours, citing completion of data.

She stated that there was “lateral transfer of information” from the DOH-accredited molecular laboratories to local government units (LGUs) and the DOH regional and central offices.

She cited the process where laboratories encode data to the COVID Repository System (CDRS) which funnels information directly to the national office, as well as emailing the data to the regional office and to LGUs for verification, contact tracing, and patient management.

LGUs would then have to verify the residence of the patient for proper contact tracing and verification before the regional and national offices could report for the completeness of the data.

Juanico clarified further that while the reporting process would take up to two days, by that time, patients have already been informed and given proper care.

“Usually, it would take 24 hours for our LGUs to verify their documents. The completeness would be within 24 to 48 hours, so the projection is correct that usually it would take two days for the numbers of cases to reflect in the national bulletin, but the patient would have already been informed by then and be given appropriate management, doing contact tracing, and isolation before those numbers are listed,” Juanico said.

 

LATEST TALLY

The DOH-WV CHD also released its case bulletin for April 22, indicating 120 new COVID-19 cases in the region based on results from 12 out of 16 accredited laboratories.

The total number of COVID-19 cases in the region is now at 33,043, including 4,650 active cases (14.07 percent).

Bacolod City posted the most number of new cases with 48, followed by Negros Occidental (29), Capiz (12), Antique and Iloilo City (10 each), Iloilo province (9), and Aklan (2), while Guimaras reported zero new cases.

Out of the active cases, 62.13 percent are asymptomatic, followed by mild (35.10 percent), severe (1.51 percent), moderate (1.18 percent), and critical (0.09 percent).

The total number of recoveries in the region is at 27,528 including 72 new recovered cases, while 3 deaths were also confirmed, bringing the total COVID death tally of Region 6 to 859.

Negros Occidental still has the greatest overall number of cases in the region with 10,020, followed by Bacolod City (6,917), Iloilo City (6,013), Iloilo province (5,813), Capiz (1,585), Aklan (1,474), Antique (838), and Guimaras (383).