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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 30) – An infectious disease expert said the government must work harder to make the number of cases of COVID-19 infection correct to devise a better strategy to combat the disease.
Dr. Benjamin Co of the Hospital of the University of Santo Tomás said he noted that data on some of the cases of coronavirus infection go up to two weeks, which explains why the daily figures reported by the Department of Health (DOH) they are not real. -hour.
“We need quality data. Without quality data, none of these numbers will make sense. “ Co said in an interview with the Philippine Foreign Correspondents Association on Tuesday. “There is no reason why we have an exit plan because there is nothing on which to base the exit plan.”
“For me, the latency of the data is forgivable … but find a way in which the data is provided to you not too late,” he added. “Some of them are too late. Some are as late as two weeks, more than a week in recoveries and deaths.”
Co also said data on the patient’s condition also takes time to report.
“In any audit, you have to make sure that the numbers are correct because that is the only way you can plan for something in the future,” he said.
“We should get as many tests as possible, the question is how many test centers do we have and do we also have a good response time,” he added. “Because if you look at the DOH data, we have a lot of posthumously diagnosed patients who die and are reported dead after a few days after COVID.”
Last week, there was confusion when Cebu City announced 139 new coronavirus cases, while DOH announced 111 new cases across the country.
DOH said the difference in data that day was due to late transmission of information from the local government. The Cebu City report was only sent to the Health Department after its press conference.
DOH explained that the daily figures are not in real time, as cases must be validated before reporting.
Co said that the local and national government should coordinate and propose a better reporting system.
He also suggested having a daily limit or a deadline to report cases.
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