Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said on Wednesday, August 19, that the Department of Health has cleared its backlog of positive tests that were awaiting validation. 

The development comes months after the department first told the public in May that it had some 12,000 tests that needed to be cross-checked. 

“Whenever it (data) is submitted to us, we are able to validate it within 24 hours. We no longer have validation backlogs, so whatever numbers we give per day, there are no late cases,” Vergeire said in a mix of English and Filipino during a press briefing. 

Vergeire was referring to the DOH’s earlier classification of daily reported cases as either “fresh” or “late” meant to show the public that not all new reported cases were new. 

“Fresh” cases referred to tests results released to patients in the last 3 days, while “late” cases covered results released to patients 4 or more days before reporting. 

Since early July, the DOH has stopped distinguishing cases as either “fresh” and “late” and instead focused on reporting active cases or patients who were still being treated for the disease. 

The DOH has also recently started highlighting the number of cases that occurred within the last two weeks. Vergeire said this was because COVID-19 is known to have an incubation period of 14 days. 

While the DOH no longer has validation backlogs, experts studying coronavirus data in the Philippines have pointed out there were still at least 3,000 testing backlogs. 

These are samples that laboratories have already collected but not yet processed. In this scenario, a person whose samples have been collected can either be negative or positive for the virus.

Some coronavirus cases likewise had missing data on locations of cases, hampering contact tracing efforts. As of Tuesday, August 18, DOH data showed some 4,800 confirmed cases not yet tagged to any location.

Experts have noted that until these are accounted for, it will be difficult to account for the true spread of the virus. – Rappler.com