THE Department of Health (DOH) on Friday, April 30, 2021, reported 8,748 new coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) cases, raising the cumulative case count in the month of April 2021 alone to more than 290,000.
These were around 70 percent higher than the March 2021 case count and more than double the number of cases in August 2020, when the Covid-19 epidemic in the country reached its first peak.
These also brought the running total of Covid-19 cases in the country to 1,037,460, which means that 563,396 cases were added in just four months (January to April) to the running total of 474,064 as of December 31, 2020.
Covid-19 cases in the country first surpassed the 2020 peak in March, but the month of April set new record highs in infections, deaths and recoveries.
New infections accelerated to nearly 11,000 per day in the first half of the month, before slowing down to an average of around 8,200 per day in the recent seven days from April 24 to 30.
Based on the DOH case bulletins, the highest single-day count was 15,310 on April 2.
However, DOH had explained that this included a backlog of 3,709 cases from March 31, which were not counted due to a glitch in their system. Without this backlog, April 2 cases are reduced to 11,601.
The peak then was the 12,674 on April 10. Other record highs were 12,576 on April 3 and 12,225 on April 9.
Based on the running total in the DOH case bulletins, there were 290,172 new cases in April 2021 alone, around 70 percent higher than the 170,936 recorded in March 2021 and over 127 percent higher than the 127,465 in August 2020.
The month of April also saw a record number of Covid-19 deaths in the Philippines.
On April 30, the DOH case bulletin listed 89 mortalities, which brought the death toll to 17,234. The case fatality rate was 1.66 percent.
In the month of April alone, the DOH case bulletins recorded 3,937 deaths, three times the 979 deaths in March 2021.
Covid-19 deaths in just four months of 2021 from January to April reached 7,990, roughly equivalent to the mortality count in more than eight months from March to mid-November in 2020.
Meanwhile, active cases soared to an all-time high of 203,710 on April 17, just before the DOH’s weekly time-based recovery scheme.
Based on this methodology, mild and asymptomatic Covid-19 patients who have had no symptoms for at least 10 consecutive days are declared as recoveries.
Following the record high active cases, DOH used its time-based tagging scheme daily, instead of weekly, to declare a total of 240,532 recoveries from April 18 to 30.
These were equivalent to roughly 83 percent of the 290,172 new infections recorded in April.
The DOH has assured that their data on recoveries have been validated. Cases are endorsed to the concerned Epidemiology and Surveillance Units (ESUs) for validation on the day prior to being tagged as recoveries.
Addressing concerns on the integrity of the data on recoveries, DOH had noted that in many of the cases reported, most have a lead time of seven days or less from the onset of symptoms to the date when the cases are reported.
As of April 30, there remained 73,908 active cases in hospitals and isolation facilities. They comprised 7.1 percent of the 1.037 million total cases.
Total recoveries as of April 30 were 946,318, or 91.2 percent of the total.
The positivity rate has remained below 20 percent, ranging from 15 percent to 18 percent in the last seven days.
On Friday, testing output improved to 54,025, with a positivity rate of 17 percent. (Marites Villamor-Ilano with HDT/ SunStar Philippines)