DOH’s report on new COVID-19 deaths includes data from 2020

FILE PHOTO Metal Caskets are made in Sto. Tomas, Batangas, which the Department of Trade and Industry dubbed the casket capital of the Philippines.

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health’s (DOH) report on additional deaths due to COVID-19 complications on Thursday included fatalities as late as September 2020.

The DOH, in its latest bulletin, reported 176 more fatalities but clarified that only eight of these were from December.

Twelve deaths occurred in November, 60 in October, 68 in September, eight in August, six in July, two in June, one in May, four in April, and one in March this year.

Meanwhile, another four deaths were from November and one fatality was from September last year.

“Of the 176 reported deaths, only 8 occurred in December 2021. 7% of the reported deaths today occurred in November 2021 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,” the DOH said.

In November, the health agency explained that deaths in the daily case bulletin include those from the previous months “because we are still validating whatever the local governments are providing us as data.”

The DOH has so far recorded 2,835,996 confirmed cases of the disease, of which a total of 49,936 have led to deaths.

The country still has 12,169 active cases of COVID-19 as of Thursday. Of this number, 46.7 percent are either mild or asymptomatic. The DOH said there are a total of 851 asymptomatic, 4,838 mild, 3,857 moderate, 2,177 severe, and 446 critical cases at higher risk for death.

EDV