DOH: Expect 'irregularly high number' of COVID-19 cases as labs submit complete data

MANILA, Philippines — The public should anticipate a higher number of reported cases of coronavirus in the coming days due to reporting delays, the Department of Health said Wednesday.

DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire there are confirmed COVID-19 cases that have not yet been included in the national tally after it required laboratories to include the addresses and contact numbers of patients when they submit data to the department’s database.

Not all of the country’s 115 coronavirus testing laboratories were able to comply with the directive effective September 1.

“This means there are confirmed cases per day that had not yet been reported officially and will come out this week because laboratories are able to comply now,” Vergeire said.

“We may have an irregularly high number of cases in the coming days as cases from these laboratories get reported. We will ensure to highlight which of these cases were late reports,” she said, adding the agency expects that this would only be a “one time occurrence.”

The DOH issued the order after local government units raised concerns that incomplete information on coronavirus patient gathered by the agency was delaying contact tracing efforts.

To address this, the department required that case investigation forms must be filled out properly and that laboratories must ensure complete information is encoded.

In the past few days, the Philippines has been seeing fewer cases with additional infections logged daily staying below 3,000-level, except for September 4 and September 8.

The DOH reported Monday 1,383 additional COVID-19 cases—the lowest daily rise since May to July. The figure, however, was based on data submitted by only 88 out of 115 laboratories.

Experts studying the coronavirus outbreak in the Philippines said over the weekend the pandemic curve for outbreak epicenter Metro Manila has flattened.

Vergeire said that “nothing is certain at this point” but she cited improvements in contact tracing response and hospital and critical utilization rate.

“We are very cautious in issuing statements regarding these improvements although we would want the people to know that we are seeing improvements and there are good indicators but we still advise that we continue to comply with minimum health standards,” she said.

The Philippines has a total of 241,987 COVID-19 cases—still the highest in Southeast Asia.

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