186 more COVID-19 patients die — DOH

Facade of the DOH main office in Manila. INQUIRER.net file photo

Update

MANILA, Philippines — Another 186 patients who had COVID-19 have died, raising the count of fatalities to 38,164 as of Wednesday.

According to the Department of Health (DOH), the total deaths account for 1.51 percent of all the 2.53 million confirmed cases of the disease in the country.

Of the tally, 132,339 cases remain active, of which 0.9 percent are critical and 2.1 percent are severe with a higher risk of death.

Earlier in the day, the DOH also reported 292 more deaths as part of backlog data. To recall, the agency encountered technical issues in reporting fatalities after the COVIDKaya, or the department’s central repository of all data related to the pandemic response reached server capacity.

READ: DOH: Limited server capacity caused failure to report COVID-19 deaths

The encoding or updating of backlogs was only done once the COVIDKaya became accessible, said the DOH.

The agency earlier noted that as the country ramps up vaccination, the percentage of deaths among COVID-19 patients in the country decreased this year despite a three-fold increase in cases compared to 2020. According to DOH, the COVID-19 case fatality rate was at 1.47 percent so far in 2021 compared to 2.47 percent in 2020.

READ: DOH: COVID-19 fatality rate lower in 2021 despite higher number of cases