Among the 164 new deaths, 86 (52%) occurred this month and 52 (32%) last month. There were also 26 from last year: six in December, two in November, six in October, eight in September, two in August, and two in July.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 14) — The country’s total number of COVID-19 deaths breached 55,000 on Monday after 164 more people lost their lives to the disease, the Department of Health (DOH) reported.
The death toll is now at 55,094, or 1.51% of the case tally, which stood at 3,639,942 after 2,730 more people were reported infected.
Of the case total, 2.1% or 76,609 are active cases or currently ill patients, with 69,574 experiencing mild symptoms, 2,970 in moderate condition, 2,310 without symptoms, 1,443 in severe condition, and 312 in critical condition.
Meanwhile, 7,456 others got well, raising the survivor count to 3,508,239 or 96.4% of all infections.
Two laboratories did not submit their reports on time, the DOH added. These laboratories contributed an average of 0.1% of tested samples and 0.1% of positive individuals in the last 14 days.
The belated reporting is due to late encoding of information in the COVIDKaya data storage system, the DOH explained.
Of the newly reported cases, 2,627 (96%) occurred within the past 14 days or from Feb. 1 to 14. The regions with the highest tally of cases in that period were Metro Manila (467 or 18%), Calabarzon (330 or 13%) and Central Visayas (283 or 11%).
The DOH said it reclassified 121 initially tagged survivors as among the dead after validation and deleted 68 duplicate cases, including 52 recoveries.
The positivity rate, or percentage of tested people with positive results, dropped further to 10.7% based on 28,620 tests reported on Feb. 12.
The World Health Organization recommends a positivity rate of below 5% for countries to reopen borders.
The DOH also projected that daily cases nationwide would fall below 2,100 by March 15.
The figures assume that most cases have the Omicron variant. They also factor in mobility, vaccination coverage and adherence to minimum health standards.
“However, if compliance to minimum public health standards (MPHS) decreases, cases are expected to go back to an increasing trend,” said the agency.
