DOH logs 144 new COVID-19 deaths; PH death toll at 52,654

UNPRECEDENTED Workers are finding themselves busier than ever at New Life Crematorium in Biñan City in Laguna, where families who have lost loved ones to COVID-19 have to wait for at least two days to secure a slot. —RICHARD A. REYES (file photo)

MANILA, Philippines — An additional 144 persons succumbed to COVID-19 complications, said the Department of Health (DOH) on Wednesday, raising the country’s death toll to 52,654.

Only 20 of these deaths, however, occurred in January. The rest were backlogs from last year with 8 deaths in September; 31 in August; 8 in July; 22 in August; 3 in June; 13 in May; 38 in April; 16 in March; 5 in February; and 2 in January.

Delays in the reporting of deaths are still due to the late encoding of death information to DOH’s COVIDKaya.

The death toll, meanwhile, currently accounts for 1.72 percent of the total 3,058,634 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country.

Active infections, on the other hand, now sit at 208,174 after the DOH reported 32,246 new cases.

Health care utilization rate nationwide also continues to increase based on DOH’s data, as 43 percent of ICU beds, 45 percent of isolation beds, 43 percent of ward beds, and 18 percent of ventilators are currently in use nationwide.

The increase, however, is more notable in Metro Manila where occupied ICU beds are now currently at 56 percent, isolation beds at 55 percent, ward beds at 67 percent, and 24 percent for ventilators.

Worldwide deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 tracker, now number at 5,504,523, while infections are at 313,545,263.

/MUF