New cases soar to 1,623; another 256 patients beat Covid-19

The Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday logged 1,623 more coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) cases, bringing the nation’s overall tally to 2,841,260.

Thursday’s figure of new cases translates to an almost 83 percent increase from Wednesday’s 889, bringing the active case tally to 11,772.

In its Covid-19 bulletin, the DOH also logged 256 new recoveries pushing the total recovery count to 2,778,115.

Of the active cases, 5,737 are mild, 577 are asymptomatic, 372 are critical, 1,771 are severe, and 3,315 are moderate.

“Of the 1,623 reported cases today, 1,582 (97 percent) occurred within the recent 14 days – December 17 to 30, 2021,” the DOH said.

It added that the top regions with most cases in the recent two weeks were the National Capital Region with 1,063 or 67 percent, Calabarzon with 173 or 11 percent, and Region 3 with 101 or 6 percent of the country’s new cases.

The death toll has reached 51,373 with 133 new deaths.

“Of the 133 deaths, 4 occurred in December 2021 (3 percent), 6 in November 2021 (5 percent), 14 in October 2021 (11 percent), 20 in September 2021 (15 percent), 23 in August 2021 (17 percent), 6 in July 2021 (5 percent), 5 in June 2021 (4 percent), 9 in May 2021 (7 percent), 21 in April 2021 (16 percent), 15 in March 2021 (11 percent), 1 in February 2021 (1 percent), 1 in January 2021 (1 percent), 2 in October 2020 (2 percent), 3 in September 2020 (2 percent), 2 in August 2020 (2 percent), and 1 in July 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 28, about 6.6 percent of 30,933 who were tested turned out positive for Covid-19.

“Ten duplicates were removed from the total case count, of these, six are recoveries and one is death. Also, 143 cases were found to have tested negative and have been removed from the total case count, of these, 140 are recoveries,” the DOH said.

It added 126 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.

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

The DOH noted that the five laboratories contribute, on average, 0.1 percent of samples tested, and none among positive individuals based on data in the last 14 days.

To date, 20 percent of 3,500 intensive care unit (ICU) beds, 23 percent of 19,400 isolation beds, 11 percent of 12,300 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, 19 percent of 3,700 ward beds, and 15 percent of 1,000 ventilators dedicated to patients with Covid-19 are in use in the National Capital Region.

Don’t make 2022, ‘2020 too’

The DOH also reminded the public to avoid unsafe holiday gatherings as new Covid-19 cases continue to rise due to increased mobility during the holiday season.

The agency said this is to prevent a repeat of the situation in 2020, where the country experienced a surge in coronavirus cases.

It also emphasized the importance of observing minimum public health standards at home and work as well as getting vaccinated to prevent further transmission of Covid-19.

“While we are seeing an increase in cases, trends for admitted severe and critical COVID-cases have remained low because of our progress in vaccination. While the occupancy rate of regular hospital beds is at 15.3 percent and ICU beds 24.2 percent, these numbers are temporary and can easily change for better or worse especially if Omicron will be the predominant variant in the country,” the DOH added.

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