The Department of Health has around 6,800 coronavirus disease test backlogs that need to be validated in the coming days in order to get a complete picture of cases in the country.

In a virtual press briefing in Malacañang, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the Health department is also "transparent" in the data that it has been releasing to the public regarding COVID-19 cases in the country.

"Now, we have around 6,800 backlogs that we need to validate, that we have to work on in the next coming days in order for us to have at least approximation between the unique individuals tested and those confirmed positive fro COVID-19," she said.

"So this validation is, we are trying to confirm the cases through the documents that are being sent to us - the case investigation form," she said.

During the past few days, the DOH reported significant increases in the daily number of COVID-19 cases, prompting some quarters to accuse the Health department of not being transparent in its previous reporting.

"The Department of Health has been transparent from the very start with our data, you all see what we have been doing. We have an open system, the data-drop where the poeple can check our data," she said.

She said the sudden rise in the number of cases was due to the automated system that the agency has been using.

"We now have this application, the COVID-KAYA where all of our facilities will be using this so that we can hasten and we can minimize delays in the passing on or reporting system across our facilities to DOH," Vergeire explained.

As of 8pm on Sunday, the DOH reported a total 18,086 or additional 862 cases.

Of the 862 new cases, 16 were said to be "fresh cases" or those test results were released to the patient within the last three days, while 846 were "late cases" or the results were released four days ago or more.

The DOH did not use such classification in the previous bulletins that it issued.

Vergeire also said that the previous 7,000 laboratory backlogs were down to almost 500 last Friday. Celerina Monte/DMS