Galpo stands by integrity of city’s data on COVID-19 cases

BAGUIO CITY (Jan. 28, 2021) – Baguio City Health Officer Dr. Rowena Galpo swore by the integrity of their data on Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases that they are reporting to the public daily.

This after the city government and the Dept. of Health reported contrasting data last Jan. 27 with 18 and 121 cases, respectively causing confusion and suspicion among the public.

“We maintain that our data are accurate since these all come from the ground and are subjected to validations.  We have always maintained transparency in our reporting of cases as emphasized by our city mayor from the very start,” Galpo said.

Galpo said data on positive cases are generated from the two authorized molecular laboratories in the city, Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center and Parkway Mediclal and Diagnostic Center.

These laboratories submit results to the DOH-CAR which in turn submits these to the city through the CHSO.

The CHSO then gives daily reports after conducting validation of the cases which explains why at times there were discrepancies between the reports of the city and the DOH-CAR.

The inconsistency last Jan. 27 was unusual because the city and the DOH-CAR’s data were close at 18 and 20, respectively.

Galpo said that upon validation, the two cases that DOH-CAR earlier tagged to Baguio were found to be actual residents of Itogon town and therefore were delisted from Baguio’s record.

The city health officer said they had reached out to the DOH central office to verify the apparent error in the number of cases.

For her part, Dept. of Health Cordillera Regional Director Ruby Constantino clarified that the 121 report that came out on national television did not come from their office.

“I do not know where the national news got their data as definitely these did not come from the DOH-CAR.  Since Jan. 1, wala pa kaming data na umabot ng 100 ang cases ng Baguio,” Constantino told the Kapihan sa Baguio press briefing Jan. 28. – Aileen P. Refuerzo