MANILA – The Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday reported 38,075 recovered coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19), raising the overall tally to 65,064.
In its latest case bulletin, the DOH also reported 3,954 new Covid-19 infections which brings the total number of cases to 89,374.
It said the additional cases reported were based on the total Covid-19 tests done by 80 out of 91 operational laboratories.
Majority of the newly announced cases are from the National Capital Region (NCR) with 1,703 cases, Cebu with 958 cases, Laguna with 177 cases, Rizal with 90 cases, and Cavite with 87 cases.
Meanwhile, there are 23 new deaths. This figure increased the number of deaths to 1,983.
“Sixty-six cases were removed from total case count and the total cases reported may be subject to change as these numbers undergo constant cleaning and validation,” the DOH said.
It added that six duplicates have been removed from the total count of recoveries while two duplicates have been removed from the total number of deaths.
The health department also updated the outcomes of three cases where one was previously reported as death but updated as recovered, and two cases previously reported as recovered but updated as deaths, after final validation and are already included in the count of new deaths and recoveries.
It also noted that the country has 22,327 active cases — around 88 percent are mild, 9.6 percent are asymptomatic, 1.4 percent are severe, and 1.0 percent are critical patients.
Meanwhile, the case doubling time is 8.94 days and the mortality doubling time is 12.87 days.
In a news release, the DOH said the recorded 37,166 recoveries, bringing the total number to 65,064 as of its July 30 case bulletin, was due to the enhanced data reconciliation efforts with local government units through OPLAN RECOVERY.
Early this month, the DOH created the Covid-19 Surveillance and Quick Action Unit which focuses on data collection, validation, and reconciliation of information available at the local and national level, through the COVIDKaya platform.
The department’s massive data reconciliation efforts have resulted in “faster and more accurate” tagging of health statuses, particularly on deaths and recoveries. It said data on recovery reconciliations will be reported every 15 days.
The reconciliation activity resulted in over 3,000 identified recoveries from July 12-14, the department said.
“On July 15, the data team implemented a ‘mass recovery’ adjustment wherein all mild and asymptomatic cases have been re-tagged as recovered with endorsement from the regional offices which resulted around 5,000 additional recoveries,” it said.
Under Department Memorandum No. 2020-0258, as endorsed by clinical practice guidelines and technical advisory groups, patients with mild or no symptoms are tagged as recovered 14 days from the date of onset of symptoms or by date specimen collection.
“Current recovery policies now show that at the tenth day of illness, the risk of transmitting the virus to other people is significantly reduced. This clinical recovery protocol is followed by the US CDC, European CDC, and India,” the new release read.
The interim guidelines provide that for asymptomatic confirmed cases, or those who never experienced any symptoms or showed any signs of being sick, must follow the 14-day isolation management protocols in clinical practice guidelines, reckoned from the day of swab testing, with day one as the date after specimen collection.
Upon assessment of a licensed physician, the patient can be tagged as recovered after completion of 14 days isolation period.
As of Thursday, the 71 licensed RT-PCR (reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction) laboratories and 23 licensed GeneXpert laboratories have conducted a total of 1,361,775 tests nationwide.
The DOH said it has 16,400 total bed capacity dedicated for Covid-19 patients. Occupied are about 51 percent of 1,400 intensive care unit beds; 54 percent of 11,000 isolation beds; and 56 percent of 4,000 ward beds.
There are 2,000 ventilators for Covid-19 patients with about 29 percent in use.