PSA 2022 Vital Statistics and Cause of Death Data as of 30th April 2022 was released on 30th June 2022. 1st Quarter 2022 Data is Incomplete Hindering Assessment of Population Trending and COD.

Only January 2022 Data is possibly substantially complete. COD cannot be evaluated due to incomplete data. January 2022 Births are 33% below, and deaths are 8% above 2019 historical levels.

The Philippines Statistics Authority has just released Vital Statistics for 2022, as of April 30, 2022, and Cause of Death (COD) data for January to March 2022. Given that it typically takes 3 to 5 months for data to be reported and compiled, only the January 2022 data could be expected to be substantially complete as of 30 April 2022. Indeed, there are no deaths or births yet reported for April as of 30th April 2022.

The COD data, being averaged across 3 months in 2022, with only one of those months likely being substantially complete, and then compared to the complete 1st quarter data from 2021 is useless. It would have been better if they had simply compared January 2021 with January 2022; no monthly breakdown has been provided to allow this to be done independently.

The 2022 vital statistics data drop provides comparison with 2021 data. This comparison data is only updated as of February 28, 2022. Thus, the 2021 3rd Quarter vital statistics data is still incomplete.

Due to incomplete data, please bear in mind that only the January 2022 data should be considered at this point in review of the released data. 4 Year January Births and Deaths are shown with forecast trendlines; deaths are trending upwards and births are plummeting.

January 2022 average daily births have decreased by 1,567 compared to 2019, the last "typical” year, and by 97 a day compared to January 2021. This represents a 33% reduction in registered live births for January compared to 2019. This may still improve once final 2022 data is released.

January 2022 average daily deaths have increased by 151 since 2019, which was the prior highest January registered death. This represents an 8% increase in registered deaths. This may rise further when data compilation is completed.

The PSA collates vital statistics as reported from Local Government Units (LGUs). Last year, prior month data was being reported by the middle of the succeeding month. For example, Birth, Marriage and Death Statistics as of 31st December 2021 were reported by 26 January 2022. In that 26 January data drop there was was still no birth and death data for December 2021, and November data was clearly very incomplete.

Given we are now at the beginning of July 2022 and we have only just received data as of 30th April, PSA appears to be about a month behind in their data entry. Possibly LGUs were busy with election activities delaying regular reporting. Alternatively PSA may need additional personnel and/or funding to bring their reporting up to date.

Release of completed vital statistics and COD data for 2021 is still pending. I am looking forward to the release of completed data for a better assessment of population trends.

Accurate and timely population vital statistics data is required to assess the impacts of the population wide covid-19 experiment.