261 new Covid-19 cases, 395 recoveries recorded

MANILA – The Department of Health (DOH) on Wednesday logged 261 new cases of Covid-19, bringing the nation’s overall tally to 2,837,784.

In its latest case bulletin, the DOH said the active cases dipped further to 9,238 with 395 new recoveries which pushed the total number of recoveries to 2,777,630.

Among the active cases, 3,153 are mild, 507 are asymptomatic, 377 are critical, 1,801 are severe, and 3,400 are moderate.

“Of the 261 reported cases today, 247 or 95 percent occurred within the recent 14 days – November 30 to December 13, 2021,” the DOH said.

It added that the top regions with most cases in the recent two weeks were the National Capital Region with 74 or 30 percent, Region 4A with 32 or 13 percent, and Region 3 with 20 or 8 percent of the country’s new cases.

The death toll has reached 50,916 with 122 new deaths.

“Of the 122 deaths, 15 or 12 percent occurred in December 2021, 17 or 14 percent in November 2021, 39 or 32 percent in October 2021, 27 or 22 percent in September 2021, 10 or eight percent in August 2021, five or 4 percent in July 2021, two or 2 percent in June 2021, one or 1 percent in May 2021, 2 or two percent in April 2021, one or 1 percent in August 2020, two or 2 percent in July 2020, and one or 1 percent in April 2020 due to late encoding of death information to COVIDKaya,” the DOH said.

The COVIDKaya is a digital application used by health care workers to collect and share data about Covid-19 cases.

The DOH added that this issue is currently being coordinated with the Epidemiology and Surveillance Units to ensure information is up to date.

According to DOH data on December 20, about 0.9 percent of 29,577 who were tested turned out positive for Covid-19.

“About four duplicates were removed from the total case count as they are recoveries. Also, there were 192 cases that have tested negative, and 189 of these have been reclassified as recoveries after final validation,” the DOH said.

It added 113 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.

Two laboratories were not operational on December 20 and 12 laboratories were not able to submit their data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System.

The DOH noted that the 14 laboratories contribute, on average, 2.8 percent of samples tested, and 2.3 percent of positive individuals based on data in the last 14 days.

To date, 20 percent of 3,500 intensive care unit (ICU) beds, 24 percent of 19,200 isolation beds, 11 percent of 12,100 ward beds, and 10 percent of 3,000 ventilators are utilized by patients with Covid-19 nationwide.

Meanwhile, 21 percent of 1,200 ICU beds, 19 percent of 4,500 isolation beds, 16 percent of 3,700 ward beds, and 11 percent of 1,000 ventilators dedicated to patients with Covid-19 are in use in the National Capital Region.