MANILA, Philippines — The errors found in data on coronavirus patients have already been corrected, the Department of Health said Wednesday as it assured the public that the discrepancies did not have any effect on the government’s decision-making during the COVID-19 crisis.
Experts from the University of the Philippines earlier spotted “alarming” errors in the agency’s COVID-19 patient data. They also observed that DOH data do not always match those of local government units.
Related Stories
In a press briefing, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said the agency has already taken steps to correct the errors found in its April 24 and 25 data drops and “other inconsistencies.”
“As early as April 26, we have since caught and corrected these issues and we very much appreciate the UP Resilience Institute for raising their concerns,” Duque said.
“We assure the public that the issue raised are less than one percent of the whole data set and does not prejudice the overall interpretation of data and decision making,” he also said, adding that DOH is continuously rectifying inconsistencies in the format of date, case classification and locations.
The National Task Force on COVID-19 checks data from both the DOH and LGUs, its chief implementer Carlito Galvez Jr. said.
Some of the errors spotted by UP experts include changes in the patients’ sex and age and residence of patients classified to another city, if not a completely imaginary city. There was also a case of a patient initially reported dead on April 24 being classified as alive the next day.
Duque said DOH is rolling out a new epidemiological surveillance information system, which automates several data collection processes. He said the new system is expected to "minimize encoding errors."
Data accuracy
In a statement, Sen. Panfilo Lacson said people should be held responsible and accountable whether the errors are inadvertently committed or otherwise.
“The COVID-19 pandemic involves people’s lives, and to a large extent, their livelihoods. That said, there is no room for officials who, because of sheer incompetence or corrupt thinking, will endanger our lives that we practically entrust to them,” Lacson said.
The UP team, in its policy note, stressed that patient case date is the “keystone” for effective analysis.
“These lapses may seem small relative to the total size of the data contained in our daily updates but they have significant implications on the reliability of our scientific analyses on COVID-19,” the experts said.