DOH records 100 more COVID-19 deaths; total fatalities now at 50,499

FILE PHOTO: Colorized scanning electron micrograph of an apoptotic cell (red) infected with SARS-COV-2 virus particles (yellow), also known as novel coronavirus, isolated from a patient sample. Image captured at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH/Handout via REUTERS.

MANILA, Philippines — An additional 100 deaths raised the country’s COVID-19 death toll to 50,449, said the Department of Health (DOH) on Wednesday.

The DOH, however, noted that only 14 of these new deaths were recorded in December. The other deaths were backlogs recorded in the past months.

Specifically, 32 of the deaths were recorded from November; 36 in October; 6 in September; another 6 in August; 2 in July; 1 in June; and another 3 as far back as May.

The health department explained that the backlogs were still due to the “late encoding of death information to COVIDKaya.”

“This issue is currently being coordinated with the Epidemiology and Surveillance Units to ensure information is up to date,” it added.

Meanwhile, the current death toll continues to account for 1.77 percent of the total 2,836,915 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country.

Active infections, on the other hand, is nearing the 9,000-mark, as it further decreased to 10,193 after the number of recovered patients increased to 2,776,273 with 565 new recoveries.

The positivity rate also remains low at 1 percent, but DOH noted that 11 were not able to submit data to its department.

Relatively low health care utilization rate nationwide also continues to be recorded by the DOH with only 22 percent of ICU beds, 25 percent of isolation beds, 12 percent of ward beds, and 13 percent of ventilators currently in use.

The same goes for Metro Manila, where occupied ICU beds are currently at 24 percent, isolation beds at 20 percent, ward beds at 17 percent and 14 percent for ventilators.

As of writing, worldwide deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 tracker, number 5,321,328, while infections are at 271,501,911.

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