QC health dep't traces 'spike' in city's COVID-19 tally to old cases entering DOH database
By Chito Chavez
The Quezon City Health Department (QCHD) on Friday (May 15) said the sudden overnight spike in the number of COVID-19 cases in the city can be attributed to the delayed turnover of reports from the Department of Health (DOH).
Dr. Rolly Cruz, head of the Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit (ESU) of the QCHD, said “the rise in the number of cases to both new and old cases that were recorded just now."
“Walang dapat ikatakot ang ating mga residente. Lumalabas na kaya tumaas ang bilang, dahil may mga pumasok na lumang kaso sa database ng Department of Health. These cases are as far back as March 18, and iyong May 12 ngayon lang pumasok,” Cruz said.
(Local residents should not fear. It turns out that the reason the number rose is because there were old cases that were entered in the DOH database. These cases are as far back as March 18, while those for May 12 were just entered.)
Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte had ordered the ESU to look into why the number of COVID-19 cases validated by the local government and district health offices surged by 129 on May 14.
“Napansin natin na mula sa average na 10 to 20 additional (COVID-19) validated cases per day, bigla tayong pumalo ng mahigit isandaang kaso. Dapat na masilip kung bakit nagkaganito," Belmonte said.
(We noticed that from an average of 10 to 20 additional validated cases per day, the number jumped by more than 100. It should be investigated why this happened.)
Cruz added that the DOH is stepping up in its efforts to sift through cases that are without address but marked as Quezon City.
As of Thursday, the DOH said the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in QC was pegged at 1,717, of which 1,599 have complete addresses.
The number of cases validated by the QC-ESU and district health offices was 1,417, with 825 active/recovering patients and 446 recoveries.