DOH vows to rectify late reports of Covid-19 cases

FILE: Commuters wearing face masks and face shields wait at a bus stop along Commonwealth Avenue in Fairview, Quezon City on Monday morning (Sept. 28, 2020). (PNA photo by Robert Oswald P. Alfiler)

MANILA — A few late reports of confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) infections are due to the “patient’s misdeclaration of the onset of illness”, a health official said Wednesday.

In a virtual media forum, Department of Health (DOH) Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire acknowledged that the department has been reporting some Covid-19 cases that happened from March to August.

On Tuesday, the DOH recorded 2,025 new cases, 180 of which happened in August, 16 in July, three in June, two in May, nine in April, and one in March.

“No matter how late the reports are, we need to correct them as these will have an implication if errors like that continue to increase. This will have an implication on our data analysis,” she said.

Citing that thousands of Disease Reporting Units validate each COVID-19 case, Vergeire explained the late case reports are “acceptable” but the department is working on their “information system gap”.

“Hopefully in the coming weeks, we will no longer see these, but we always say there is no 100 percent information system,” she said.

As 4 pm Wednesday, the DOH reported 2,426 newly-confirmed cases, 585 recoveries and 58 deaths.

These figures bring the total number of cases to 311,694, recoveries to 253,488, and death toll to 5,504.