News Roundup 12 May 2020
May 12, 2020 • 3 min Read
UP experts spot ‘alarming errors’ in DOH’s COVID-19 patient data | PHILSTAR.COM – The University of the Philippines COVID-19 Pandemic Response Team in their policy note released Tuesday pointed out errors and discrepancies in the Department of Health’s data on COVID-19 patients. Comparing official data published only a day apart on April 24 and 25, experts from the state university found that 45 cases had their recorded sex changed (male to female or vice-versa), 75 patients got older or younger by as much as decades, 516 had their residence moved to another city or a “completely imaginary city” (like a barangay or district) and even a patient initially reported dead being reclassified as alive the next day. Moreover, the health department logged conflicting location data with inconsistencies in the coding of the Philippine Geographic Code (PSGC), which is ironically supposed to provide “uniform standards and classification systems in the generation of government statistics to ensure harmonization and comparability of statistics in the country and at the international level,” according to the Philippine Statistics Authority. “These lapses may seem small relative to the total size of data contained in the daily updates, but they have significant implications on the reliability of our scientific analyses on COVID-19,” wrote the UP team. “As we have repeatedly pointed out since Day 1, any analysis is only as good as the data that we have…We do recognize the difficulties in the collection of detailed and timely records of COVID-19 data on a nationwide scale. However, no matter how difficult, these problems need to be addressed at the soonest possible time and should be of top priority.”
Senate honors late DOT chief Jimenez, ‘the man who put a fun PH on the world map’ | INQUIRER.NET – The Senate has honored former Tourism Secretary Ramon “Mon” Jimenez, Jr., who passed away last April 27 at the age of 64, for his contributions to tourism and the advertising and communications industry. During the chamber’s session on Tuesday, Senate Resolution No. 399 was adopted in consideration with Senate Resolution No. 402. The resolutions were separately introduced by Senators Francis Pangilinan and Leila De Lima, respectively. All senators were made co-author of the resolution after it was adopted. Pangilinan, in his sponsorship speech, remembered Jimenez as “the man who put the fun Philippines on the world map.” The late tourism chief was behind the country’s tourism campaign “It’s More Fun in the Philippines.”
COVID-19 displaces 2.5M workers | Manila Bulletin – The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has already displaced nearly 2.5 million workers. The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) Bureau of Local Employment said that as of May 8, there are already 2,498,441 workers from 93,621 establishments affected by the crisis. “As of 08 May 2020, about 78% or 73,065 of establishments with 1,668,082 workers were temporarily closed,” DOLE Assistant Secretary Dominique Tutay said. She said the remaining 22% or 20,556 establishments (with 830,359 employees) adopted flexible work arrangements.
‘Ambo’ maintains strength, almost stationary over PH Sea — Pagasa | The Manila Times – Tropical depression (TD) “Ambo” maintained its strength as it remained almost stationary over the Philippine Sea on Tuesday, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) said. As of 11 a.m., Pagasa spotted Ambo at 385 kilometers east of Surigao City, Surigao del Sur, moving north northwest at 15 kilometers per hour (kph). The state-run weather bureau said it has maximum sustained winds of 55 kph near the center and gustiness of up to 70 kph over the Philippine Sea. Signal No. 1 may be raised over portions of Eastern Visayas on Tuesday in anticipation of potentially strong winds associated with Ambo, Pagasa said. Weather specialist Chris Perez said disruption of maritime activities may be experienced in areas where a storm signal is in effect. Perez said tropical depression Ambo may intensify into a storm within 24 hours.
