The Department of Health (DOH) is now reporting new coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases, recoveries and deaths in real-time, a health official said Wednesday.

“We’re doing it real-time and validate within 24 hours as soon as we get the information and we report it the following day,” DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a virtual media forum.

Vergeire added the department no longer identifies new confirmed Covid-19 cases as “fresh” or “late”.

On May 29, the DOH introduced the terms “late cases” – positive cases belatedly submitted and were validated only recently – and “fresh cases” – test results that came in less than three days and were readily validated by the department’s Epidemiology Bureau – to create a distinction for its validation backlogs.

“Wala na tayong fresh and late cases, wala na tayong backlog sa (We don’t have fresh and late cases anymore, we don’t backlog with the) validation,” Vergeire said.

“If you would notice, what we place there (case bulletin) is recent two weeks because we want people to know kung (if) which data happened for the past two weeks,” she added.

Citing that the incubation period of Covid-19 is 14 days, Vergeire said they are emphasizing on the data (new cases, recoveries and deaths) within the past two weeks in their reports.

As of 4 p.m., Wednesday, the DOH reported 173,774 Covid-19 cases, 113,481 recoveries, and 2,795 deaths related to the disease. (PNA)