PH flattening COVID-19 curve, expert says

Coronavirus. FILE IMAGE

MANILA, Philippines — There is now a flattening of the COVID-19 curve in the Philippines despite the backlog in the encoding of data and processing of specimens, a local epidemiology expert said Tuesday, citing the recent decline in the number of new cases and deaths due to the novel coronavirus.

In an online press briefing, Dr. John Wong, president and founder of think tank EpiMetrics, Inc., said the country’s case doubling time has lengthened to “around four days” while the mortality rate exhibits a “more dramatic” slowdown as it now approaches the seven-day rate.

Wong, who is also part of the government task force on coronavirus sub-technical working group on data and analytics explained that the current figures on the coronavirus crisis reflect the situation from 10 to 14 days ago.

“We are already seeing that about 10 to 14 days ago, the curve has already flattened. If there have been no significant changes we would expect that the flattening will continue,” Wong said.

The epidemiologist pointed out that flattening of the curve is “more evident” in Metro Manila where the vast majority of the COVID-19 cases nationwide are concentrated.

To date, the Philippines has 9,485 COVID-19 cases, including 1,315 recoveries and 623 deaths.  Of the total cases, 6,234 or over 65 percent were recorded in the metropolis.

However, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the basis for claiming that the pandemic curve is flattening should not be based solely on the number of new cases and mortality rates.

“Ito pong mga sinasabi nating mga ito ay kailangan hindi kuhanin or intindihin sa iisang konteksto lang. Katulad ng sinasabi natin, hindi lang numero ng kaso ang pinag-uusapan natin dito. Pinag-uusapan natin dito ang kapasidad ng health system kung tayoy makakagapay kung sakaling dumami ang kaso,” Vergeire explained in the same press briefing.

(What we are discussing here should be taken entirely in one concept. Like what we’ve been saying, we should not just look into the figures. We are also talking about the capacity of the country’s health care system to respond if there’s a rise in the number of infections.)

But according to the Health official, the current backlog of the Department of Health is at 8,000 tests, which means only about 10 percent are likely to test positive and would not significantly affect the case doubling time.

JPV