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In March 2020, the Philippine Department of Health (DOH) designed and rapidly implemented a national surveillance system for the utilization of hospital beds by patients with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) to produce complete and timely data for use by various levels of governance in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The DOH launched the DOH DataCollect (DDC) Bed Tracker system, a web-based application that collects information from all 1906 public and private hospitals and infirmaries across the country using a modular data collection tool. Data on the maximum number of occupied COVID-19-designated beds (n = 28 261), hospital bed utilization rate (71.7%), and mechanical ventilator number (n = 1846) and utilization rate (58.5%) were recorded in September 2021 during the Delta surge of cases in the Philippines. Data on human resources, personal protective equipment and supplies, and other operational indicators were added to the system during various modifications. Information from the DDC was used to inform the COVID-19 response and operations at national and local levels and facilitated research at academic and nongovernmental agencies. The development of the DDC system demonstrates that an effective surveillance system for use by all health-care facilities is achievable through strong national leadership, the use of available technology and adaptive information systems, and the establishment of networks across different health facilities and stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Jacuí Delta drains into Lake Guaíba which is the main source of water for more than two million people in South Brazil and has suffered from pollution with heavy metals and phosphorus. The objective of the current research is to demonstrate how the use of sediment source tracing techniques, in combination with sediment flux monitoring, can improve understanding of the sediment source contributions to one of the largest lakes in South America. The sediment flux monitoring results were based on data obtained from 12-years of records of water flow and suspended sediment concentrations. The sediment source fingerprinting approach was based on the use of geochemical tracers. Based on the study, the respective contributions of the tributaries to the sediment in Lake Guaíba were estimated to be as follows: the Jacuí River (median of 54% - interquartile range (IQR) 34–71%), the Caí River (12%, IQR 7–16%), the Sinos River (5%, IQR 1–20%), and the Gravataí River (16%, IQR 10–30%). These results are similar to those derived from the sediment flux monitoring, namely: the Jacuí River (70%), the Caí River (19%), the Gravataí River (4%), and the Sinos River (7%). These results demonstrate that the sediment source fingerprinting approach combined with sediment flux monitoring can provide a useful means of estimating the respective sediment contributions from individual tributaries in large and complex delta systems and may provide a powerful tool to guide water resource management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]