The Department of Health (DOH) on Monday explained that their verification of resolved cases of COVID-19 infections is more stringent causing their tally of active cases for Bohol to be higher than that of the provincial government amid confusion on why records of both offices consistently showed discrepancies.
DOH Bohol representative Niel Oclarit said the DOH still needs to undergo a longer verification process before reporting the resolution of a COVID-19 case.
This is the reason why the number of active cases reported by the DOH Central Visayas (DOH-7) is higher than that of the Bohol Inter-Agency Task Force (BIATF) while the health department’s tallies for deaths and recoveries are lower compared to those of the province.
According to Oclarit, their verification takes longer as they still have to coordinate with hospital officials to confirm the state of the COVID-19 patients and require a proof of recovery or a death certificate before declaring a case as resolved.
“Ang data sa region ginaverify pa before ginareconcile with the data from the province. Dili siya everyday so mahog na every two weeks pa siya ma reconcile especially sa recoveries,” Oclarit said.
“Mas taas sa region kay dili siya ma counted as recovered og wala pa ma verify,” he added.
Latest data issued by the BIATF on Monday morning indicated that there were 898 active COVID-19 cases in Bohol with 1,980 recoveries and 41 deaths.
Meanwhile, the DOH 7, in its Sunday night bulletin, reported 1,249 active cases for Bohol with 1,686 recoveries and 18 deaths.
Based on the latest DOH 7 data, Bohol has the most number of active cases in the entire Central Visayas surpassing both Cebu province and Cebu City which have 889 and 857 cases, respectively.
The three localities were followed by Lapu-Lapu City with 541 cases, Negros Oriental with 505 cases, Mandaue City with 433 cases and Siquijor with nine cases.
Previously, confusion also arose on why cases for Cebu City, Mandaue City and Lapu-Lapu City were not included in the tally of Cebu province.
Although the three cities are located within the island of Cebu, all three are considered as highly urbanized cities which are no longer under the provincial jurisdiction of Cebu province.
Cebu City has two legislative districts while Lapu-Lapu City and Mandaue City each have lone districts.
Voters in the Lapu-Lapu City and Cebu City are also not qualified to vote for a governor of Cebu province.