PH’s Covid-19 death toll tops 11,000 as 1,894 more get virus

MANILA, Philippines — Covid-19 has now killed over 11,000 people in the country, as 1,894 more test positive for new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, according to the Department of Health’s (DOH) report Friday.

DOH said 61 patients have recently succumbed to the illness, driving the nationwide death toll at 11,058.

The health agency also said the 1,894 new cases brought the country’s total Covid-19 cases to 533,587, including 34,255 active patients.

On the other hand, DOH said 397 patients were able to survive the respiratory disease pushing the sum of recovered patients to 488,274.

DOH said the active cases represent 6.4 percent of the total cases, while recoveries and deaths represent 91.5 percent and 2.07 percent of the tally, respectively.

Of the active cases, 89 percent are mild, 6 percent are asymptomatic, 2.3 percent are critical, 2.2 percent are severe, and 0.51 percent are moderate infections, according to DOH.

The figures, however, do not include data from six laboratories that were not able to submit their information on time, DOH said.

Meanwhile, DOH said six duplicates, including three recoveries, were removed from the total case count. Forty-seven cases previously tagged as recovered were reclassified as deaths after final validation.

On hospital capacity for Covid-19 patients, DOH said 60 percent of total intensive care unit beds, 65 percent of isolation beds, and 77 percent of ward beds were still available as of Friday’s reporting.

To recall, DOH confirmed on January 30, 2020, the country’s first case of Covid-19: a Chinese woman who arrived from Wuhan City where SARS-CoV-2 was believed to have emerged in late 2019.

Globally, SARS-COV-2 has to date infected at least 104 million, according to the Covid-19 dashboard of the Johns Hopkins University. This number includes almost 2.3 million deaths and 58.3 million recoveries, as well as 44.2 million active cases.