THE Department of Health (DOH) on Sunday, June 14, sought to allay fears of rising mortalities from the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), saying the case fatality rate in the country is actually going down.
DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire issued the assurance in a virtual press conference Sunday, a day after the agency reported 22 deaths, the highest in one day.
On Friday, June 12, DOH also reported 16 deaths. Such high numbers may have caused concern and Vergeire, in behalf of the agency, apologized for this.
She reiterated that their data is based on the date of reporting, not on the date of death. The high numbers were a result of late reporting, she stressed.
“Ibig sabihin, hindi po sila pumanaw kahapon lang (It means that these deaths did not occur yesterday),” she said.
Of the 22 mortalities reported on June 13, Vergeire said only four or 18 percent died in the month of June, specifically on June 3, 4, 6, and 9.
The other 18 deaths occurred in the previous months but were only recently submitted by local government units to the DOH - Epidemiology Bureau.
Epidemiologist John Wong, who joined the virtual press conference, said deaths have continued to go down since April.
A graph of the Covid-19 deaths based on the date of death showed that mortalities peaked around April. Deaths have been on a downtrend trend since then, Wong said.
He also said the case fatality rate (CFR), or the proportion of deaths compared to the number of confirmed cases, has gone down.
Vergeire said CFR went down from 5.52 percent as of May 31 to 4.24 percent as of June 13, which is lower than the global average of 5.6 percent and that of Indonesia.
As of June 13, 1,074 had died from Covid-19 out of 25,392 confirmed cases, or a CFR of 4.22 percent. (With a report from HDT/SunStar Philippines)