PUBLIC information on coronavirus is an all-important, critical matter.
This is the reason why it behooves us in the media and equally important among involved agencies like the Department of Health down to provincial and local government units’ health offices to report only factual and valid data.
Alongside the real battle on the health care frontlines, the government and even LGUs are also waging war on what they call as “fake news” and confusing data or inputs on Covid-19 on social media and other information platforms.
This is critical information as it is a matter of life and death now.
Accuracy should be the name of the game.
Accurate reporting in the number of deaths, especially, of recoveries and daily tallies of positive cases is of paramount importance.
It really matters because it immediately affects the perception, outlook, mood, and whole psychological structure of the public.
In the end, it will affect each and every individual’s social conditions, mental and emotional health.
Case in point in the consistently inconsistent manner of reporting, tabulating, writing, or whatever, is in Lipa City’s daily positive cases on critical coronavirus cases.
Sometimes, the provincial health office (PHO) would report the city incurred 109 positive cases when in fact only half of it is the real score.
To be exact, it was on April 22, 2021, that the PHO reported on its official online platform that Lipa incurred the hundred-plus number but in fact Mayor Eric Africa’s city only had 46 infections that day!
That’s a huge discrepancy of 63 cases!
As such, we dug deeper and compared daily cases from thereon between the PHO’s reporting against that of Lipa’s own tally.
From thereon, the PHO has indeed been consistently inconsistent in reporting.
On the following day, the 23rd of April, the PHO claimed Lipa only had nine (9) cases but in fact, it had 61.
On the 24th, you’d jump for joy as the city accordingly had zilch, zero, nada infections but no, Lipa has 24 positive cases; and then again on the 25th, the PHO said Lipa had 17 even as the latter reported it had 23.
On the next two days (26th and 27th), Lipenos would jump again for joy as they have zero cases for two consecutive days! But wait, it had 45 and 25 cases, respectively.
The inconsistency stayed on through the next three days until the end of April with the PHO showing records of 15 as against Lipa’s 43; 32/44 and 33/32.
Batangas has 34 local government units but it would be most appreciated if the provincial government’s PHO extended a helping hand to double-check and realign its tally back into the real world and regain the trust of the populace.
It’s good news to note the town of Talisay is “consistently consistent” to have zero cases since April 10, 2021.
But what’s odd is the fact that we never heard any award or whatever has been extended to the town for that extraordinary feat.
Could it be another case of consistent inconsistency?