Recoveries or deaths? Why some COVID-19 cases are reclassified, according to DOH

Every day, the total number of COVID-19 recoveries and fatalities shift due to reclassification or when cases that were previously tagged as recovered or died are correctly categorized after final validation of data.

Even as reclassified cases at times do not exceed 50, there are also instances where more than 100 cases are reported, leading to a notable shift in the tally.

So how and why are COVID-19 cases reclassified?

Part of the process

According to the DOH, the reclassification of cases is a routine process when reporting COVID-19 data.

“This process allows the local epidemiology surveillance unit to perform in-depth case investigation for the cases that the department reports daily while still allowing the department to report case data ta near real-time,” the department told GMA News Online.

The agency said it must reclassify cases due to the misreported outcomes from the surveillance units or from the counterchecking of the outcomes with the PSA death records.

“Reclassification of cases’ health statuses comes from changes in the severity of the patient’s symptoms or when the patient has reached an outcome from the infection (recovered or died),” it said.

“The process of reclassifying health statuses of cases means that there are efforts being done to make the data more accurate given the current information we have from our surveillance units,” DOH later added.

There were five instances where more than 100 cases that were previously tagged as recovered were reclassified into deaths this year.

On February 19, the DOH reported 120 reclassified cases. This was followed by another 167 reclassified cases the following day.

Meanwhile, 166 reclassified cases were reported on April 6 while 133 reclassified cases were reported on April 7.

On April 9, the Philippines reported 213 reclassified cases, the highest this year.

According to the Health Department, the data it receives from local units are cleaned, deduplicated, and processed in order to keep its accuracy and reliability.

Meanwhile, data that have been found to be erroneous and inconsistent are endorsed to local epidemiology surveillance units for further case validation.

“This allows the department to report data as fast as possible while maintaining case data quality. Changes in data are not necessarily corrections and could be proper reclassifications due to changes in the current state of the patient,” it said.

The Philippines has reported a total of 840,554 confirmed COVID-19 cases, of which 647,683 have recovered and 14,520 have died.—LDF, GMA News