Raffin

As you say JG it's still too early in the season to talk about titles. I would see there being a number of titles. Some teams are playing in a league of the advanced economies, others are in lower leagues where much less is expected of them. There are regional leagues too.

The Trump managed team is doing a Liverpool, with all the advantages the US has to fight the virus. Trump has been actively sabotaging the team in his single minded pursuit of 4 more years in power, supported by some state governors and 35 to 40% of the population. At the minimum he has 5 more months in charge to get many more points. Even after January nearly half the country might refuse a vaccine. Many because of his distrust of science. Brazil is similar, but the country is viewed as not quite on a par with the main industrialised economies yet, so less is expected. India, led by a right wing authoritarian, hundreds of millions in poverty, but with nuclear weapons, is a top contender too.

The Philippines team manager started off the season with a strong lockdown game plan. Military in nature, but not adaptable enough to fight a tricky virus.Just lately his team has been getting into the top ten tables for one day record cases and deaths. The latest was for August 30. To combat this the manager will probably use the tactic of not following through on increased testing promises. Concentrate more on the derby with Indonesia about who is the worst in ASEAN.

Football teams at the lower level often cultivate links with bigger teams. In the case of the Philippines:

https://news.abs-cbn.com/video/news/...-hero-is-putin

who is going to help with a new scientific approach. Despite all that the manager has been firm on not opening schools for face to face tuition and has been slow, maybe too slow, on re-opening the economy. If he leaves it to the health experts and just puts his mind on Mindanao military matters, with a young population and lowish death toll, I don't think it will be a complete disaster here. Just bad.

Yes, small surprise teams like Peru and Belgium can easily get into the headlines. Countries that seem to have done many of the right things but the virus still takes hold. Some countries also can surprise with a sudden dip in form. Already we have France, S Korea..Hong Kong...even the much praised New Zealand. As countries try to re-open their economies we can expect more to have similar reverses in form.

Raffin

Back on the domestic front the Philippines has had a regular day...7 day average of daily new cases up to 3,800. Deaths 7 day average up to 80.

Some quality of data issues...

Nationwide, 26 of the new cases reported today came from way back.. March to June. Seven of those from March!

Five of the 39 deaths reported yesterday came from March to July.

Testing done yesterday was just over 31k from 97 out of 110 labs. The DOH always show the cumulative number of tests, which looks good at about 2.5m to date. But there is a resurgence of the virus and they need to do more than they are doing now, judging by positivity rates and hospital occupancy levels.

The DOH yesterday had Pampanga as the fifth top province for new cases with 116. Whereas elsewhere in their data one can see only a handful of cases. We await a reaction from the provincial authorities on that.

Still no resolution on the 10,000 or so cases attributed to QC by the DOH, but not accepted by QC. As a report on this was only carried by Rappler and the Manila Bulletin this issue hasn't become well known.

There's the demise of ABS-CBN TV and now reports that the Inquirer might be cutting back. Less and less critical media on covid when it is most needed.

Stokkevn

Usual problems here. Up to end 1st Sept National DOH has Western Visayas as having had 5409 cases, Western Visayas DOH have them having had 4842 cases. Where is there a truthful and up to date case data site for province by province.

Gazza-d

But that would imply someone actually knowing the correct number to report.

Raffin

Stokkevn...as of yesterday the DOH had W. Visayas adding 164 cases to make 5568 total. Implying yesterday was 5404. The small discrepancy from your 5409 probably due to "data cleaning". W Visayas the fourth highest region yesterday for new cases.

It's often commented that many of the forms accompanying lab test results are incomplete. I suspect when it comes to attributing positive results to regions or cities the local health authorities will apply stricter criteria than the DOH. After all local officials do not want blame from Manila and ultimately a visit from a task force general if they start showing increases in cases relative to other regions or cities. If there is a continuation over many weeks of a region applying different criteria on regional location a large difference could build up. An extreme case of this is shown by QC. A difference of 10k. Yesterday the DOH reported just 16 cases out of 3,483 that they couldn't attribute to a region. You could say the DOH is "the devil you know" here as they are also in the business of trying to spin their statistics at times.

Gazza is pointing out that all the official data is just a base to assess the scale of the outbreak. An analysis of US excess deaths due to covid came out recently. Deaths much higher than recorded. Though the US has a very good health statistical reporting system. When there are cover ups whistle blowers come out and expose them. This was the case in Republican governed Florida two months ago. The lady in question left her post and was interviewed on CNN. She said she is going to set up an independent stats dashboard to monitor coviid in schools as they are pushed to re-open. Something the federal government under Trump is, for obvious reasons, not doing.

Raffin

New cases yesterday were just below 2k. The last day that happened was July 26. The day before a lower than usual 2,218.

Daily test positivity nationwide was at 9.4%, so below 10%, a level which is often seen as the start of the danger zone. For the last week in August the average daily figures were at 11.7% nationwide and a higher 13.9% for the NCR.

Deaths yesterday were at 65, but the day before 27.

As always for deaths and especially new cases backlogs have to be taken into account. Yesterday new cases as far back as March were reported Nationwide...18.1% of nationwide cases were from before August 20. For the NCR the share was 19.7%.

So some signs of movement in the right direction.

UP statisticians have made some forecasts:


A big range with each of the lines reflecting different assumptions. The effect of changing the NCR Quarantine, the reproduction rate, weather, Undas, Xmas etc

The blue mean line reaches to about 580k by the end of the year. But if we continued at about 2k a day total cases would get to around a lower 450K. The better lower green line adds about 1,600 a day.

If we could get back to the June levels of less than 1k a day then an outcome below the green line is very possible. But in July daily cases quickly grew into the thousands on NCR re-opening. So again that will be the most important factor. Expect some revised forecasts after a few more weeks of this latest re-opening in the NCR and surrounding region.

Last...good they use the word "detected"!

Bealinehx

Raffin,
Very good and extremely informative.
Any relaxation in quarantine conditions will see an increase in new cases. Witness France, Spain, Germany, UK and others in Europe in the lasts two weeks.
Yesterdays announcement on employment will only increase calls to relax restrictions.
Times will continue to be challenging.

Raffin

Thank you again, B.

Those European countries and the US had summer related cases. Here in the NCR area it's going to be people getting more out to work and shop. Then later on what will happen with gatherings? Work is still quite restricted in the NCR under GCQ. Though less so in the surrounding industrial provinces under MGCQ. In the run up to Xmas people will be out more, but this year they have a lot less to spend. Do they have the usual enthusiasm? Department stores, appliance stores around here were nearly empty when we last went in late August.

Restaurants have no ambiance. Quarantine passes allow only one person in,as under MECQ, a rule which has yet to be take off. Some stores require people to wait in outside lines. Most people in the NCR work in the service industries but how many will get their jobs and previous hours back?

So I think even if more restrictions are relaxed due to lobbying by business there won't be much effect.

All this seems to me to be mostly good for controlling covid. The economy will have to wait.

Bealinehx

Had a discussion with some of my Filipino neighbours earlier this morning. We all agree that this government is about enforcement and NOT education, hence the air of paranoia.

Raffin

The DOH reported 3,714 new cases yesterday (88% recent). The NCR 1,797 (83% recent)
Nationwide positivity slipped back to over 10%.
So the improvement so far this week has had a reverse.
Why? Testing may have increased from a recent average of around 35k individuals per day? The DOH can now get reports from 3 more labs. We will know that tomorrow, And/or it cold be the result of changes in the locations of mass testing.
By early next week it should be clear whether there is an established downward trend.

Deaths were at 49 Nationwide , 31 of those from the NCR.
Nationwide May to July there were 9 deaths! One can only conclude that reviews of death certificates are taking place and finding the cause of death incorrect. Although a drop from yesterday the deaths trend is better established.

Here are charts for new cases and deaths up to Sep 3:

Raffin

A continuation yesterday of better news with 2,529 nationwide cases. NCR 1,171. Backog about 15%. The thing about these daily case backlogs is that many have already recovered.
Noteworthy that Bacolod City had more cases (253) than any city in MM.
Deaths at 53 nationwide, slightly up on yesterday.
Five more labs are now being used than at the start of September. We will soon see if that has had any effect on the average number of tests this month.

The DOH put out this announcement about their improved case fatality rate, down to 1.6%:

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news...-to-1-6/story/

Good to read that the Philippines is using some newly available treatments, but the rate of 1.6% is flattering due to the likelihood of many undetected cases here.
Also the age distribution of the population is favourable to a low CFR. John Hopkins has this infographic on Spain, S Korea, China and Italy's CFRs by age group:


Clearly showing dramatic increases as age increases.

South Korea also has the same CFR as the Philippines.

The latest % age distribution estimations for both countries are:

Years Philippines S Korea
0-9 21 8
10-19 19 9
20-29 18 13
30-39 14 14
40-49 11 17
50-59 9 17
60-69 5 12
70-79 2 7
80+ 1 3

S Korea can be seen to have as older population. It is likely to have many fewer undetected cases than the Philippines so its CFR of 1.6% looks realistic.
The lowish Philippine figure is not reliable in the first place due to undetected cases and nevertheless should be lower on the official CFR table due its age advantage. Casting doubts on treatment.

Gazza-d

The life expectancy of 71 in the Philippines compared to 83 in South Korea will be a factor giving a higher old age rate of fatalities in South Korea. Not the Philippines doing better.

Raffin

Yesterday new cases up a bit at 2,839 (81% recent). Of those the NCR at 1,170, 41% of the total. Not so long ago Manila was consistently contributing the majority of daily new cases.
However, the provinces near Manila.."Calabarzon" are now providing 15 to 25% Cavite and Laguna have many industrial areas, and have seen more activity under a move to a modified GCQ.
Deaths up at 85 with the NCR recording just under half of them. Again with a long tail going back to March.

Sunday is "Recovery Day" for the DOH....over 23k were removed from the active total (cases net of recoveries and deaths).

The DOH give prominence to the active case total but it's not a measure that's respected much due to international differences in defining recoveries. But the record of Sunday active cases going back to August 2 gives a measure of the burden of the pandemic. Backlogs in deaths are unfortunately included, but do not affect the picture much:

Yesterday: 48,803.....then 56,473......55,286.....46,002......59,970.....35,5 69

A significant recent fall following a rise in the second half of August.

Looking at the last week compared with (the one before):

7 day growth rate in news cases 1.5% (2.7%)
3,063/day (3,693/day)
Deaths 371 (492) 53/day (70/day)
Reproduction number: 0.86 to 0.88 (0.95 +/-).

So a significant improvement.....but with the proviso that the positivity rate is still above the danger level of 10% nearly every day and so instead of doing about 33k tests a day we should probably be doing 50-60k. But as a contributor here, RedApe, commented some weeks ago the country probably isn't up to doing that level of testing! A shame because the outbreak will likely take much longer to get under full control. After that unexpected spikes may occur. Like the one the UK is having now. Hospitals in the NCR and Calabarzon will be still operating for covid at near critical levels too.

The usual expert commentators are getting a mite over excited recently. One here...a UP mathematics professor.. is putting too much weight on the R number. Tracking and tracing is very poor, especially in the NCR epicentre, so R estimates will be unreliable. The R number needs to be well below one and stable over a longer period to maintain a downward trend. Also, talking about the virus "petering out" is unwise as many of the epidemiologists I have listened to think it may stick around like the 'flu.

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/09/06/...-curve-analyst

I don't watch local tv or listen to radio, but I doubt if the interviewers...those left...challenge these experts much.

Raffin

As 27 labs failed to submit reports on time yesterday's reports give a very incomplete picture. You never see a full house of 115 reports... the day before 19 labs failed to submit.....but this was unusually low. No explanation forthcoming from the DOH.
For what it's worth 1,383 new cases reported nationwide.
Deaths at 15, of which 11 were from the NCR. Ten of those from July and before!

Anyway, these charts show the officially reported situation up to September 6:



An interesting ABS-CBN report showing how widespread the virus is, something suggested by a nationwide positivity rate of above 10%

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/09/07/...s-than-a-month

Another ABS-CBN report which illustrates well how many task force measures end up getting implemented. Think the police are going to get a lot of tip offs from people who want to get back at others for some reason:

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/09/07/...ine-violations

Raffin

Yesterday the DOH reported another 3,281 cases...but they only came from 81 out of the 115 labs. That's another 7 labs not reporting yesterday. The list of the 34 labs not reporting contains many that didn't report the day before, so are many labs taking a break? No reason given by the DOH. The docile press here not talking about it.

Hopefully important decisions will not be taken until the unreported results come out.

The NCR contributed 43% of cases, Calabarzon 30%

There were 26 deaths, 9 from the NCR. Expect many more in the weeks to come as there now are about 1,700 patients nationwide currently in a severe/critical condition.

Even allowing for the probable under-reporting of cases lately there is an improvement compared with mid August. All regions except 2 in Mindanao are showing a significant drop in 7 day average case growth. On August 15 the NCR was at 3.6%, on Sep 8 it is at 0.94%