Shockingly high with more than 50,000 tests done on August 7, 2021 is the positivity rate of 21.3%.
The shock here is that the Health Agency reported only 8,900 new cases today and miraculously 6 new deaths. That pushes the active cases now close to 80,000. The major problem is the hospital utilization in the National Capital Region which is up, with the ICU utilization at 67% or a tad shy of the critical mark of 70%.
It is likely that the 8,900 new cases announced are those that have been validated for now. The health agency has been erratic in announcing the cases for the day. For example, yesterday’s data did not tally – the total announced by the government was 9,671 but during the data drop of the DoH, there were 9,753 actually recorded.
While the province of Cebu had 1,352 cases reported for 08.08.2021, the major cities Cebu City, Lapu Lapu and Mandaue had around 750 cases only. Where did the 600 cases come from? And that becomes a problem when we just rely on data without being able to scrutinize it. It makes the modeling and prediction bad.
How did the province of Cebu end up with this data? Well let’s start off with the fact that 903 of the reported cases on August 8 were from specimen collection dates August 4-6, 2021. Four hundred and forty five (445) were from August 1-3, one was from July 31 and 1 all the way back from February 11. The right question to ask is WHY is the data (and reporting) in such disarray? The Health Agency needs to provide more transparency on how it collects data and what it announces for the day, because all projections and modeling highly depend on the data the health agency gathers and reports.
The NCR continued to dominate the day, followed by CALABARZON and Central Luzon. The share of Mega Manila for the total cases in the Philippines is up at 27% (and climbing).
Cavite is back on top among provinces with most cases, followed by Cebu and Laguna.
Among LGUs, Quezon City maintains its lead. The City of Manila, Cebu City, Cagayan de Oro and Dasmariñas (Cavite) are the others in the top five. Twelve of 17 LGUs in NCR are among the top twenty cities with most cases for the day.
Relative Joy 