Is MECQ until May 31 in NCR, Laguna and Cebu City the right decision?
Statistically Speaking v. 2.0
The President announced last Tuesday a modified extension of lockdown (MECQ) in Metro Manila, Laguna, and Cebu City until May 31, “making it among the world’s longest community quarantines to try to halt the coronavirus pandemic” , adding that “we cannot afford a second and a third wave” of infections”. The community quarantine in 40 provinces and 11 cities considered “low risk” for infections would be lifted. The following day, however, the government recalled the lifting of community quarantine in “low risk” areas[2]. What a turn-off about decision-making within the IATF!
Of course, we hope the IATF recommendation on the lockdown extension is based on relatively good quality COVID-19 data. It may be recalled that earlier, the UP pandemic response team raised data issues “such as the continuing mismatch between the DOH and LGU numbers, alarming errors in patient-level data, inconsistencies in coding, and inconsistencies in the use of date formats”. This is sad because “the availability of accurate, relevant, and timely data is a basic requirement in managing the COVID-19 pandemic ”[3]. As may have been expected, Secretary Duque quickly assured the public “that the issues raised are less than one percent of the whole data and does not prejudice the overall data and decision making.”[4]
But what do the COVID-19 numbers tell us? Which numbers do we look at?
The Worldometer[5] compiles country level data on number of cases (cumulative and new) , number of deaths (cumulative and new), total recovered, total active, total serious or critical cases, cases/1 M population, deaths/ 1 M population, total tests, and tests/1 M population. The file is updated every day.
According to David Leon, Professor of Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, “if we want to make comparisons between countries in terms of the burden of death rates associated with COVID-19, we need to simply count the number of deaths that are occurring in the pandemic period and compare them with the deaths we would expect based on the years before the pandemic period.” He calls the difference “excess deaths” which he says “is actually the only really comparable way of looking at whether or not countries do better or worse in terms of what happened with COVID-19”[6]
But I believe that while Prof. Leon’s logic has its merits, it has its own defects one of which is on the accurate measurement of the expected deaths. For practical purposes in assessing whether the curve has flattened, and therefore whether further lockdown extension is justified, I prefer to look at the number of cases, the number of deaths, and derivatives thereof.
More specifically, we analyzed the data posted by Worldometer from 5–12 May 2020 for the following 21 countries selected somewhat arbitrarily:
ASEAN (original member states)
- Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore
Other Asia
- China, Japan, South Korea, India, Taiwan, and Hongkong
Oceania
Australia and New Zealand
North America and Europe
- USA, Canada, Spain, Italy, UK, France, Belgium, Germany (among the countries with the highest number of cases except for Canada and Belgium)
Subject to the limitations of the Worldometer dataset, here are some findings: (You can explore the interactive dashboard prepared by my colleague Jay Mendoza through this link: https://tinyurl.com/y9ddrx6s. )
- The Philippines posted an average daily increase of 3.03% in the number of COVID-19 cases and a 7-day jump of 19.66% in the cumulative number of cases from May 5 to May 12. These are among the highest for the 21 countries. In fact, for both indicators, the Philippine numbers are worse than the overall world figures of 2.73% and 17.56%, respectively. The only countries among the 21 that do worse than us are India, Singapore, and Indonesia.
- The same story goes for the number of deaths. Our average daily increase of 3.16% and the 7-day jump of 20.55% from May 5 to May 12 are among the highest and are worse than the overall world numbers of 2.23%, and 14.18%, respectively. Only India and Canada do worse than the Philippines.
- As of May 12, the Philippines had 7 deaths per million population (DPM), much lower than the figures for the 2 North American countries and the 6 from Europe as well as the world DPM of 37. Belgium had 756, Spain had 576, and Italy had 508 while USA had 248, and Canada had 132. ”[7] However, the DPM for the Philippines is higher than for Australia, New Zealand and all the 10 Asian countries including India.
- As of May 12, the Philippines had 104 COVID-19 cases per million population, much lower than the world figure of 550 and those of the 2 North American and 6 European countries as well as Singapore. Likewise, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Malaysia, Hongkong, and Japan have higher numbers than the Philippines. But this may be because the Philippines has the 3rd lowest number of tests per million population at 1658 as of May 12, higher only than those for India at 1275 and Indonesia at 604.
With these numbers, even if I seem to have had more than enough of quarantine, and assuming that the bad numbers for the Philippines are caused by the NCR, Laguna, and Cebu City, I therefore agree with the decision to have MECQ until May 31!
But to pay China PhP 20 billion for three million PPE sets or at “a staggering PhP 6,667 each per PPE” when the DOH paid only PhP 1,800 each in March for what Usec Vergeire already considered was the “most complete set”? Very fishy, one must say! As the Philippine Daily Inquirer asked, “Is the country being ripped off here, at a time when the pandemic has laid ruin to the economy and left millions of Filipinos starving and desperate?”[8]
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[1]Romulo A. Virola is formerly with the Actuarial Research and Development Group of the GSIS, and a former Professorial Lecturer in the Graduate Programs of the Statistical Center/School of Statistics and the Department of Mathematics (now the Institute of Mathematics) of the University of the Philippines . He retired in 2012 as Secretary General of the then National Statistical Coordination Board of the Philippines or NSCB (now part of the Philippine Statistics Authority). He finished his BS (Mathematics) from UP, and MS (Actuarial Mathematics) and PhD (Statistics) from the University of Michigan, where he was a Fellow in its Sampling Program for Foreign Statisticians. He used to write/co-write the Statistically Speaking articles posted on the NSCB website from 2004 until his retirement. The author thanks his former colleagues in the National Statistical System (NSS) of the Philippines, Jay Mendoza of IOM, UN Migration Agency and some FB adviser-friends for the assistance and support in preparing this paper. He is grateful to medium.com and public.tableau.com for the use of their facilities.
[2] https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1274032/eased-lockdown-till-may-31-in-metro-cebu-city-laguna#ixzz6MIeLg1PE. In our April 20, 2020 post, we hinted that the extension should be expected.
[3]https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/
[5] https://www.worldometers.info/
[6] https://twitter.com/euronews
[7] Surprisingly, FP Guide identified Canada as one of a few countries together with Taiwan, South Korea, Georgia, and Iceland that “are succeeding in flattening the curve”, https://foreignpolicy.com/
[8] https://opinion.inquirer.net/129763/rip-off#ixzz6MIbv1pDJ . However, Secretary Carlito Galvez, Jr., Chief Implementer of the National Action Plan on COVID-19 clarified that “the P20 billion I mentioned during the May 9 interview in Davao City is not for the purchase of the three (3) million sets of personal protective equipment (PPE) alone but for 11 million complete PPE sets”… https://opinion.inquirer.net/129828/malicious-inaccurate-galvez-covid-19-task-force-chief-implementer-explains-p20b-is-for-11-million-ppe-not-3-million#ixzz6MSmaHmYl
