Public’s right to know in the fight vs Covid-19

If not for the huge validation backlog, the Philippines would soon be on its way to having the ­­­­most number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) in Southeast Asia. The government has so far focused on downplaying the true extent of the health crisis by emphasizing the number of active cases, a number that could be misleading as it does not account for the backlog in validation of positive cases. The Department of Health (DoH) should come clean and tell the people the real score. Now is not the time to cherry-pick statistics. The public deserves to know the real situation.

What is making it worse are statements of government officials that could make Filipinos complacent. For instance, Health Secretary Francisco Duque 3rd’s initial statement that the Philippines “successfully flattened the curve since April” was not accurate. Duque did not even support his claims with a graph. Hours later, he admitted his mistake and clarified that the curve got “bent” and did not flatten. I don’t see any bending downwards of the curve in the log and linear scales from the University of the Philippines Covid-19 Pandemic