Source: Department of Health
MANILA, Philippines — The percentage of COVID-19 patients who have died among the confirmed cases was lower this year as compared to last year due to vaccination efforts and other factors, according to the Department of Health (DOH).
Based on DOH data, the case fatality rate (CFR), or the percentage of people who died among the confirmed cases of the disease, was at 1.49 percent so far this year compared to 2.47 percent last year.
“Nationally, the case fatality rate was lower this year at 1.49 percent versus that from last year at 2.47 percent. The National Capital Region had the highest cases and deaths in 2021 but its case fatality rate was the lowest among all the regions at 0.94 percent. It had the highest full vaccination coverage at almost 60 percent,” DOH Undersecretary and spokesperson Maria Rosario Vergeire said.
The 0.94 CFR in Metro Manila this year was lower than the 2.31 percent in 2020.
In a statement on Wednesday, the DOH said that the overall CFR was lower in 2021 due to the vaccination drive and other response efforts against the pandemic.
“This may be attributable to vaccination efforts, upgrades in our health and critical care capacity, referral systems, and clinical management. Similarly, for NCR, lower CFR was multi-factorial, which includes its high vaccination coverage and increases in its health and critical care capacity,” the DOH noted.
According to DOH data, the national CFR per month was highest in March 2020 at 18.60 percent and lowest in August at 1.04 percent. However, the figure for September 1 to 8 was at 2.72 percent.
Meanwhile, the national utilization rate of COVID-19 allocated beds was highest in August and September 1 to 8 this year at 58.30 percent and 70.79 percent, respectively. ICU utilization rate is also highest at 67.60 percent in August and 75.27 percent in September so far.
The DOH noted high healthcare utilization rates despite the 210-percent increase in total beds from August 2020.
Amid the high numbers for bed occupancy, the DOH recorded a “marked improvement” in the interval between detection and isolation of COVID-19 cases at six to seven days since March this year, as compared to the 11 days in August 2020.
The country has 170,446 active COVID-19 cases as of Wednesday out of the 2.28 million confirmed infections since the pandemic began. Of the tally, 35,742 patients have died.
The health agency has been recording over 20,000 new daily cases in the recent weeks, which is being attributed to the community spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.