PH COVID-19 deaths now past 52,000 — DOH

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) on Saturday reported 265 new COVID-19 deaths to bring the total number of mortalities to 52,135 in the country.

The total number of deaths is 1.78 percent of all cases.

Of the 265 deaths, only 15 occurred this January, according to DOH.

Most of the deaths happened last year in 2021, with two in December, eight in November, 37 in October, 59 in September, 51 in August, 35 in July, 13 in June, five in May, two in April, three in March, six in February, and 12 in January 2021.

There were also deaths reported in 2020 that are included in the 265 total.

Four were reported in December 2020, five in November, five in October 2020, one in September 2020, one in August and one in July.

The backlogs were due to the late encoding of death information to DOH’s system.

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

The DOH also reported 26,458 new COVID-19 cases bringing the total number of infections to 2,936,875.

Saturday’s caseload is the highest since September 11 last year, when the country reported 26,303 cases.

The active cases in the country are now at 102,017 but 95.5 percent of them are only mild or without symptoms.

The DOH said 99 percent of the new cases were recorded within the 14-day period of December 26-January 8.

The positivity rate is now at 43.7 percent.

The total number of recoveries is now at 2,782,723 or 94.8 percent of all cases after 1,656 new survivors were logged.

Meanwhile, the global COVID-19 caseload is now at 303.2 million, including 5.47 million deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University Case Tracker.

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