DOH logs 4,131 new COVID-19 cases from March 7 to 13

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 14) — The Department of Health reported 4,131 new COVID-19 cases for the week of March 7 to 13.

In its weekly bulletin on Monday, the DOH said only three of the new cases were severe or critical. The daily average was at 590 new cases, 35% lower than the previous week (Feb. 28 to March 6).

The DOH also logged 591 new fatalities in the same period. Of the 591 deaths, 115 (19.5%) occurred this month, 164 (27.7%) last month and 95 (16.1%) in January.

There were 149 deaths from last year: eight in December, six in November, 15 in October, 40 in September, 23 in August, 19 in July, 16 in June, three in May, 10 in April, six in March, one in February, and two in January.

There were also 68 deaths traced back to 2020: 15 in December, seven in November, nine in October, 11 in September, 16 in August, six in July, one in June, two in May, and one in March 2020.

The belated reporting is due to late encoding of information to the COVIDKaya data storage system, the DOH explained.

The agency noted that the bed utilization rate for non-intensive care units is at 17.2%, meaning 4,648 beds are used out of 27,021. Meanwhile, the ICU bed utilization rate was at 19.6% or 704 beds out of 3,598. There are also 1,006 critical admissions or 14.3% of total admissions.

The vaccination rate is at 71.71% of the target population and 74.87% of the target A2 (elderly) population.

More than 64.54 million individuals have been inoculated, of whom 849,950 received their shots from March 7 to 13. Over 11.16 million individuals have been administered booster shots including 606,444 boosted in the same week, the agency said.