BY RAYMOND AFRICA and GERARD NAVAL
SENATE minority leader Franklin Drilon yesterday demanded full transparency from government after the Department of Health changed the manner of reporting data on the country’s COVID-19 cases.
“We demand full transparency. With the DOH changing the manner of reporting the data after more than two months, we cannot help but suspect that it is hiding something. Honesty is the best policy here,” Drilon said.
Drilon made the call after the health department said it would now also include in its daily report the breakdown of new COVID-19 cases, the number of newly-validated cases, and those which were delayed.
The DOH changed its manner of reporting as it reported the highest single day cases of 539 on Friday last week or three days before Metro Manila and some parts of the country were to transition to a general community quarantine status which eased quarantine protocols.
The recent surge in the submission of line lists from laboratories has prompted the DOH to reformat its daily case bulletin.
The new DOH format now indicates how many are “late cases” and how many are “fresh cases,” or test results released within the last three days of the date of reporting.
Based on the June 1 Case Bulletin, the DOH said 552 new COVID-19 cases were reported on as of 4 p.m. of Monday.
This brings the country’s total to AREAS18,638 cases.
Of the newly-reported cases, 119 are considered “fresh cases” while the other 433 are identified as “late cases.”
Among the COVID-19 cases, three new fatalities were recorded, bringing to 960 the total number of COVID-19 deaths in the country.
Also on Monday, the DOH reported 70 new cases of recoveries among COVID-19 patients to bring the national total to 3,979
Drilon said being fully transparent with the data plays an important role in containing the virus, as what South Korea did.
“South Korea has showed transparency since Day One. They did not hide the real data from the people. They dealt with the pandemic with complete transparency and because of this, coupled with the government’s decisiveness, they are able to contain the virus,” he said.
On the contrary, Drilon said China apparently hid vital information on the virus during the early outbreak of the virus in Wuhan, where the disease originated.
“Whereas China, it cannot be denied that the China experience has shown that the lack of transparency could be fatal,” he added.
Drilon questioned the basis of the DOH new reporting as he expressed fears that the health department may have been underreporting cases all along.
“What is the basis for disaggregating cases and how does that affect our interpretation of flattening of the curve? Has the inter-agency task force (IATF) considered these figures in its decision to shift to general community quarantine (GCQ)?” Drilon said.
He said there are several complaints not only from the public but also from laboratories themselves which are confused with the new classification of cases into “fresh” and “late” cases.
“If the DOH could not provide logical explanations for this, except for putting the blame on laboratories, then there is a reason to believe that it is underreporting COVID-19 cases. That is not only counter-productive because hiding the real data could be fatal,” Drilon said, citing the differences between the way South Korea and China reported their COVID-19 cases.
Sen. Leila de Lima filed Senate Resolution No. 425 which calls for an inquiry into the real status of the government’s mass testing programs.
“The lack of effective mass testing has effectively hampered our ability to control the spread of the virus by denying us leads for contact tracing, which, in turn prevents us from isolating and containing the infected individuals,” de Lima said in a statement.
Aside from the failure of some health facilities to update their records with the onslaught of new COVID-19 cases, de Lima said there is also a problem in COVID-19-related deaths which are not properly accounted for as some persons have already died before testing were done.
“According to a report, there exists no national total of how many Filipinos have died of circumstances that resemble COVID-19 but were never confirmed by lab testing. Even the DOH COVID-19 tracker only counts the deaths of confirmed cases.
In its continuing bid to get a real-time picture of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in the Philippines, the Department of Health has called on 14 of the 42 operational licensed laboratories to immediately submit the test results that still require validation.
In a statement on late Sunday night, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said the 14 laboratories have to submit their complete line lists to allow the agency’s Epidemiology Bureau (EB) to validate them and be included in the country’s official count.
“We urge the 14 remaining operational laboratories, who have yet to submit their complete line lists, to coordinate with DOH and submit immediately,” said Duque.
He said the DOH needs line lists to be able to provide accurate and timely information to policy-makers.
“(It is also important) to the public, who have endured the hardships brought on by this pandemic. Our people deserve to know,” said Duque.
The health chief explained that the line list contains all COVID-19 test results conducted since the beginning of the laboratory’s operation.
The validation process of the DOH-EB, meanwhile, eliminates possible duplication in recording of cases sourced from all test results have been transmitted to DOH.
Sans the line lists from the 14 laboratories, Duque said they will no longer provide any “late cases,” or test results released four days or more from the date of reporting but have just been validated, in the daily case bulletin.
This, he added, is because the line list of 27 licensed laboratories and the partial line list of 1 other have already been submitted and validated by the DOH-EB.
“(We have) cleared all the backlog cases for validation based on the complete line lists submitted,” said the health chief.
“Starting June 1, no more late cases will be reported until the remaining operational laboratories submit their complete line lists,” Duque added.