Philippines ends 2021 with almost 3K new COVID-19 cases

The Philippines on Friday closed the year with 2,961 new COVID-19 cases as the increase in fresh infections continued on New Year's Eve.

According to the Department of Health (DOH), this brings the nationwide tally to 2,843,979 and active cases to 14,233.

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

The country’s positivity rate also spiked to 10.3% from the previous 6.6%, further surpassing the recommended positivity of less than 5% of the World Health Organization.

There were a total of 30,526 tests conducted.

Meanwhile, the DOH also reported 481 new recoveries, bringing the total to 2,778,242, while the death toll rose to 51,504 with 132 new fatalities.

Of the fatalities, nine deaths occurred in December, three in November, 24 in October, 18 in September, 12 in August, six in July, eight in June, five in May, 13 in April, eight in March, and four in January this year.

Twenty-two of the deaths reported occurred last year “due to 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.

Meanwhile, ten duplicate cases were removed from the total case count while 232 cases that were found to have tested negative were also removed.

“Moreover, 117 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation,” the DOH said.

Two laboratories were not operational while six were unable to submit data on time.

Data from the DOH also showed that 20% of the country’s intensive care unit beds are occupied and 11% of the mechanical ventilators are in use.

Meanwhile, 24% of the ICU beds in the National Capital Region are in use while 14% of the ventilators are occupied. —NB, GMA News