PH’s active COVID-19 cases breach 60,000-mark with 4,387 new infections
MANILA, Philippines — The country’s total active COVID-19 cases rose to 61,733 on Wednesday after the Department of Health (DOH) reported an additional 4,387 cases.
According to DOH, there are now a total of 635,698 COVID-19 cases in the country.
This figure also covers 561,099 recoveries, which include 374 newly-recovered patients, and 12,866 deaths, including 18 additional fatalities.
The DOH said the active cases compose 9.7 percent of the total count, while recoveries and deaths are 88.3 and 2.02 percent of the tally.
Of the active cases, 96.8 are either mild or asymptomatic.
Meanwhile, nine duplicates, including six recoveries, were removed from the case count, while five cases previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.
Six laboratories were not able to submit their results to the COVID-19 Document Repository System on Tuesday.
On hospital capacity, the DOH said 53 percent of intensive care unit beds, 60 percent of isolation beds, 67 percent of ward beds, and 72 percent of ventilators are still available despite the spike in cases.
Dr. Alethea de Guzman, OIC Director III of the DOH Epidemiology Bureau, earlier noted that the number of new COVID-19 infections has reached the same peak that the country saw in July last year.
She said that for this March, the country is reporting new cases that are 2.5 times higher compared to that in the beginning of January.
The country has so far recorded a total of 177 cases of the B.1.1.7 variant first detected in the United Kingdom, 90 cases of the B.1.351 variant from South Africa, and a case of the P.1 variant from Brazil. Experts said these variants have been associated with higher transmissibility of the virus, with initial studies also showing that the South African variant may be resistant to some vaccines.
“If these become the dominant variants, cases will increase by 28 times instead of just three times after a month,” de Guzman warned.
Government authorities have been reminding the public to follow the minimum public health protocols against COVID-19, amid the pandemic fatigue being felt by Filipinos whose movements have been restricted since March last year.
JE
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