PH ends 2021 with nearly 3K new infections, 481 more recoveries

MANILA – The year 2021 will close with the country having a total of 2,843,979 confirmed cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) after 2,961 new infections were recorded on New Year’s Eve.

Friday’s fresh cases translate to an 82.4 percent increase from Thursday’s 1,623, raising the active case tally to 14,233.

In its Covid-19 bulletin, the DOH also logged 481 new recoveries pushed the total recovery count to 2,778,242.

Of the active cases, 8,365 are mild, 628 are asymptomatic, 342 are critical, 1,701 are severe, and 3,197 are moderate.

“Of the 2,961 reported cases today, 2,927 or 99 percent occurred within the recent 14 days – December 18 to 31, 2021,” the DOH said.

It added that the top regions with most cases in the recent two weeks were the National Capital Region with 1,981 or 68 percent, Calabarzon with 431 or 15 percent, and Region 3 with 179 or 6 percent of the country’s new cases.

The death toll has reached 51,504 with 132 new deaths.

“Of the 132 deaths, 9 occurred in December 2021 (7 percent), 3 in November 2021 (2 percent), 24 in October 2021 (18 percent), 18 in September 2021 (14 percent), 12 in August 2021 (9 percent), 6 in July 2021 (5 percent), 8 in June 2021 (6 percent), 5 in May 2021 (4 percent), 13 in April 2021 (10 percent), 8 in March 2021 (6 percent), 4 in January 2021 (3 percent), 2 in December 2020 (2 percent), 3 in November 2020 (2 percent), 1 in October 2020 (1 percent), 4 in September 2020 (3 percent), 10 in August 2020 (8 percent), 1 in July 2020 (1percent), and 1 in March 2020 (1 percent) 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 29, about 10.3 percent of 30,526 who were tested turned out positive for Covid-19.

“Ten duplicates were removed from the total case count, of these, seven are recoveries and one is death. Also, 232 cases were found to have tested negative and have been removed from the total case count, of these, 230 are recoveries,” the DOH said.

It added 117 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.

Two laboratories were not operational on December 28 and six laboratories were not able to submit their data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System.

The DOH noted that the eight laboratories contribute, on average, 0.4 percent of samples tested, and 0.3 percent among positive individuals based on data in the last 14 days.

To date, 20 percent of 3,500 intensive care unit (ICU) beds, 22 percent of 19,200 isolation beds, 12 percent of 12,200 ward beds, and 11 percent of 3,000 ventilators are utilized by patients with Covid-19 nationwide.

Meanwhile, 24 percent of 1,200 ICU beds, 21 percent of 4,700 isolation beds, 21 percent of 3,700 ward beds, and 14 percent of 1,000 ventilators dedicated to patients with Covid-19 are in use in the National Capital Region.