PH records 1,790 new Covid-19 cases; recoveries nearing 500,000

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) reported on Sunday an additional 1,790 confirmed cases of Covid-19, with the total number of recoveries nearing the 500,000 mark.

The newly-reported active cases put the country’s total tally of Covid-19 infections at 537,310. The number of patients who have recovered, meanwhile, is now at 499,798, including a huge 11,388 recoveries.

There were also additional 70 people who have died, pushing the Covid-19 death toll to 11,179.

According to DOH, the present active cases comprise 4.9 percent of the total count, while the recoveries and deaths compose 93 and 2.08 percent of the tally, respectively.

Of the active cases, 87.9 percent are mild, 5.6 percent are asymptomatic, 3 percent are critical, 2.9 percent are severe, and 0.67 percent are moderate infections.

The DOH said a duplicate case was removed from the total case count. Fifty-five cases that were previously tagged as recovered were also reclassified as deaths after final validation.

The data does not include eight laboratories that were not able to submit their data on time.

On hospital capacity, the DOH said 62 percent of total intensive care unit beds, 66 percent of isolation beds, and 77 percent of ward beds are still available.

The country’s first Covid-19 case was reported on January 30 last year from a Chinese woman who arrived from Wuhan City, China where the new coronavirus was believed to have emerged in late 2019.

In the Philippines, there are now a total of 25 confirmed cases of the more transmissible SARS-CoV-2 variant, called B.1.1.7. which was first detected in the United Kingdom. The DOH has not detected other variants of the virus from other countries based on the latest genome sequencing conducted.

There are now more than 105 million total Covid-19 cases globally, based on the Covid-19 dashboard of the Johns Hopkins University. Of this number, there are more than 58 million recoveries and 2.3 million deaths, which leaves over 44 million active cases.

/MUF