Low lab output: Philippines posts 1,019 new COVID-19 cases

MANILA, Philippines — The number of new COVID-19 cases continue to decline, with yesterday’s tally nearly reaching three digits at only 1,019 cases, data from the Department of Health (DOH) showed.

It was in Dec. 29, 2021 when the DOH last recorded a daily tally below 1,000 cases at 889 infections.

Based on DOH’s case bulletin, the number of new COVID-19 cases has dropped starting Feb. 18.

According to DOH, the 1,019 new cases brought the total cases in the country to 3,654,284.

All COVID-19 testing laboratories were operational on Feb. 20 but the agency said that five of them failed to submit their data.

The DOH added that the “lower reported numbers and positivity rate” on Feb. 22 are “because these are Sunday laboratory outputs, which traditionally have the lowest outputs per week.”

Data showed the positivity rate was at 6.4 percent of the 18,177 samples tested. The positivity rate indicates the number of people who test positive for COVID-19 out of the total tests conducted.

There were 56,668 active cases, representing 1.6 percent of the overall tally cases.

The death toll rose to 55,776 cases after 13 patients succumbed to the virus.

On the other hand, 2,988 patients have recovered, bringing the number of survivors to 3,541,840 cases.

NCR positivity rate

In the National Capital Region (NCR), the number of people who test positive for COVID-19 has fallen within the recommended level of the World Health Organization (WHO) for the first time since Dec. 26, OCTA Research Group fellow Guido David said yesterday, citing data from the DOH.

He said the seven-day average positivity rate in the region dropped to 4.9 percent as of Feb. 21, the first time it fell within WHO’s recommended level of five percent or below since the start of the Omicron-driven surge.

According to David, NCR remained at “low risk” classification, with the average number of new cases dropping by 28 percent over the past week. It recorded 332 new cases on Monday.

The region recorded an average of 2.85 daily new infections per 100,000 people, considered as “moderate” based on OCTA’s standards.

Its reproduction number, which indicates the number of people that a positive individual can infect, is still at a “very low” 0.21, while health care utilization is at a “very low” 25 percent.

David earlier projected that new cases may drop to as low as 200 per day by the end of the month.

Cause of death

Meanwhile, the proportion of deaths due to COVID-19 to the total mortality in the Philippines has increased further, now accounting for 14 percent of total deaths in the country.

This puts the virus as the third leading cause of death in the Philippines.

Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed that the preliminary number of registered deaths from January to November 2021 reached 704,202, up 25.7 percent from the 560,205 in the same period in 2020.

Of the total number of deaths in the 11-month period, 97,212 was due to COVID-19, representing 13.8 percent of the total.

By classification, COVID-19 with the virus identified was the third leading cause of death with 67,494 cases or 9.6 percent of the total.

This is a 700 percent increase from the 8,390 deaths in the comparative period. Meanwhile, registered deaths due to COVID-19 with virus not identified accounted for 29,718 or 4.2 percent of the total deaths.

Data from the DOH, however, showed that COVID-19 deaths in the January to October 2021 period only reached 39,315.

The discrepancy between the PSA and DOH data should be taken into consideration as data from the former are based on the descriptions written on the medical certificate portion of all death certificates received which were certified by local health officers, while data from the DOH were collected through a surveillance system.

COVID-19 deaths as per PSA data refer to both confirmed and probable cases as of registration, whereas figures released by DOH were deaths from confirmed cases only.

Still, COVID-19 deaths at 97,212, both virus identified and not, registered a 247 percent from the 27,985 in 2020.

Last year, more deaths were registered amid the second wave in April and third wave in August due to the more transmissible Delta variant that resulted in more severe and critical cases.

Among the regions, Calabarzon recorded the highest number of deaths due to COVID-19 with 20,409 or 21 percent of the total. This was followed by Metro Manila with 20.7 percent and Central Luzon with 18.4 percent.

In NCR, Quezon City saw the biggest number of mortality due to the virus at 4,479 deaths or 22.2 percent of the total. Manila came in second with 14.2 percent followed by Pasig with 10 percent.

Heart disease remained the leading cause of death in the country with 125,913 deaths or 17.9 percent of the total. This recorded a 32-percent increase year-on-year.

Deaths due to cerebrovascular diseases came in second with 68,180 or 9.7 percent. COVID-19 came in third and was followed by neoplasms, or cancer, with 54,583 deaths or 7.8 percent.

PSA said deaths due to pneumonia went down six percent to 30,063, pushing its rank from fifth to seventh. Similarly, deaths due to respiratory tuberculosis decreased by 13.2 percent. – Louise Maureen Simeon, Janvic Mateo