Doc bares double Covid case entries

By Uriel Quilinguing, Contributing Editor .

A TOP disease tracker yesterday said there are double entries of coronavirus disease cases that were tagged to this city by the regional health agency.

This, even as the regional epidemiology surveillance and disaster response unit (Resdru) of the Department of Health 10, last night reported a record-setting 271 recoveries from this city.

But Dr. Joselito Retuya Jr., epidemiologist of the City Health Office, in yesterday’s press briefing at city hall, said the tally of DOH 10 Resdru has already surpassed the 2,000 mark when they listed only 1,956, so far.

Retuya said that the DOH 10 Resdru must have tallied 25 cases more than the city emergency operations center had validated and recorded, based on actual test results and patients profiles.

“We’re looking at 14 double entries so far,” said the resident epidemiologist, and that there could be more because double-checking (of patients’ addresses) is still ongoing.

Managing data, he said, need so many eyes and there are always a chance of errors because these come in daily and many encoders are involved, both at the CHO and at DOH 10 Resdru.

Retuya said they have a problem with cases involving persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) because many are from other places and yet these patients are in their care.

He said that from the very start there have been persons sheltered in their community isolation units (CIUs) and in temporary treatment and monitoring facilities (TTMFs) who are non-city residents.

“We’re learning in this pandemic on how to consolidate and coordinate with so many agencies and teams looking at each and every one of us,” said the CHO official.

With the 271 patients who have been cleared from infections, these padded the city’s cumulative recoveries to 1,345 since March this year, representing 67.25% of confirmed cases.

Also indicated in DOH 10 Covid-19 briefer were 16 fresh infections tagged to the city which increased the active cases to 589, thus breaching the 2,000 threshold of cases, including 66 who had expired.

The city’s previous single-day high recoveries was 68 patients that was set six days ago, 49 of them were PDLs, five non-residents, and residents who caught the virus from the locality.

Also shown are 576 active cases who were either index cases or those with epidemiological links, while 13 others got the infections from their travels as stranded individuals and repatriates.

Of the active cases, 88 are admitted in public and private hospital while 488 are isolated in temporary treatment and monitoring facilities.