(FILE) Workers in protective suits, used due to the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, wait outside a crematorium facility as the cremation process takes some two hours in Manila on April 29, 2020. (Photo by Maria TAN / AFP)
MANILA, Philippines — The country’s COVID-19 death toll is now at 51, 213 as two more patients succumbed to the disease’s complications, the Department of Health (DOH) said Tuesday.
This is the lowest number of daily deaths recorded since Oct. 5 — when no deaths were recorded due to a technical glitch on DOH’s COVIDKaya system — and the first time the country logged a single-digit death figure since Oct. 20.
The DOH also noted that none of the two latest recorded deaths were reported in the month of December.
“The 2 deaths were from September 2021 (100%) which were only reported now due to late encoding of death information to COVIDKaya,” the DOH explained.
“This issue is currently being coordinated with the Epidemiology and Surveillance Units to ensure information is up to date,” it added.
The current death toll, meanwhile, still accounts for 1.80 percent of the total 2,839,111 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country.
Active infections, on the other hand, slightly increased to 9,750 after the DOH reported more fresh infections than recoveries for the fifth consecutive day.
The positivity rate also increased to 2.6 percent. This is the highest positivity rate the DOH has recorded since Nov. 26.
A relatively low health care utilization rate, however, continues to be recorded by the DOH nationwide with only 18 percent of ICU beds, 23 percent of isolation beds, 11 percent of ward beds, and 10 percent of ventilators currently in use.
The same goes for Metro Manila, where occupied ICU beds are currently at 21 percent, isolation beds at 21 percent, ward beds at 17 percent, and 12 percent for ventilators.
As of writing, worldwide deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 tracker, number 5,407,070, while infections are at 281,415,418.