DOH, IATF stand firm on accuracy of COVID-19 data amid questions raised

Members of the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) on Thursday stood firm on the accuracy of its data on COVID-19 situation in the country amid the issues raised recently by a group of UP experts.

At a virtual forum, data scientist Maya Herrera, a member of IATF's analytics team, said their data undergoes thorough verification process.

"I can assure you, we validate our data before we use it. There will always be questions, but we validate the data," Herrera said.

"If the data does not pass validation, we return it to data owners and say what we found and they will investigate it," she added. "We make sure that our validated data is enough for us to make a good analysis and a good conclusion."

Herrera made the statement in light of the observation made by the UP Resilience Institute that 45 COVID-19 cases have changed genders while at least 75 patients became either older or younger based on Department of Health data from April 24 to 25.

Health Secretary Francisco Duque III already said that such error accounted for less than 1% of the overall data, and that was corrected on April 26.

Herrera said it would be wrong to say that the DOH data is incorrect even with the 1% error.

"When you say incorrect, do you mean incorrect lahat? Hindi lahat ay incorrect. Pag nag-validate ka nung isang portion at accurate ito at yung isang portion ay may problema, hindi ito incorrect. May kulang lang,” Herrera said.

"Mayroong hindi magkakasundo [ang figures] ng city at ng region. What you do is to bring it back so it can be corrected. Kung may conflict man sa Visayas, that does not affect my NCR forecast. Kung 99% ay valid at correct, that makes your conclusion valid," she added.

Another data scientist, Reena Estuar, said it is understandable that local government units and health workers reporting the data will miss something due to lack of manpower and since they are pre-occupied in treating patients.

"There could be improvement in terms of data collection po, and we need to balance. Do we relax para mas mabilis sila maka-submit? Or we restrict it para walang error?"  Estuar said.

"We need to have correct data entry. When they submit data na may missing information, we have to remember na iyong ibang health workers, iyon rin po ang nagi-encode ng data. At minsan rin po, mahina rin ang internet connection, kaya iti-treat muna nila ang pasyente. Kaya sana po mas madagdagan ang manpower para mas mabilis na makapagverify."

Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, who was part of the web forum, stressed that the DOH will not base its decisions and actions on false data.

"Hinding-hindi natin papabayaan na hindi accurate at validated ang ating data. Sinisigurado po natin na tama lahat ang ating datos," she said.

As of May 13, the Philippines has 11,618 COVID-19 cases. Of this number, 2,251 recovered while 771 died. --KBK, GMA News