The Department of Health on Monday said that they have started identifying cities and areas with high number of new confirmed coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases to be “more granular” and to spark immediate response from concerned local government units.
Instead of identifying the regions where the new COVID-19 cases were recorded, the Health department recently shifted its classification by showing the specific city or area with the most number of new confirmed cases.
“We changed the classification because we like it to be more granular as possible dahil gusto natin yung local response ay immediately magagawa (because we want the local response to be immediately done),” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario said in a virtual press briefing.
“This is also to provide local government unit information so that accountability will be there. Dati rati kapag sinasabi nating NCR, ating nabubuo ang NCR na sila ang nasa top pero ‘pag tinignan natin iilan-ilan lang na mga cities sa NCR na talagang may matataas na new cases at yung iba naman ay hindi (In the past when we say that NCR has the highest number of new cases, the whole region is identified as the highest contributor even only some of its cities have high cases and not all),” Vergeire explained.
The health official said further that they shifted into this kind of reporting to give the public a closer look on the specific areas in the country with most new confirmed cases of the disease.
The department, she added, will also be disaggregating and focusing on specific areas other than Metro Manila in the coming days.
“We started in NCR and other areas but definitely we like it to be as granular as possible so people also will understand. Like our direction and objective in conducting quarantine levels, we want to use a granular approach for accountability purposes and focused interventions,” Vergeire said.