Covid-19 numbers low as DOH updates surveillance system

THE Department of Health (DOH) on Sunday, May 23, 2021, reported low numbers of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) cases and deaths due to technical issues in its epidemiological surveillance system CovidKaya.

In its case bulletin Sunday, the DOH reported 3,083 new infections, the lowest since the 2,886 cases over two months ago on March 10, and 38 additional mortalities, the lowest since the 10 deaths more than a month ago on April 5.

“The relatively low number of new cases was due to the simultaneous updates being made in the CovidKaya. Some case data from the CDRS (Covid-19 Document Repository System) were not included in the CovidKaya and were not included in this case bulletin,” DOH said.

“This issue is currently being investigated and addressed by the CovidKaya technical team,” it added.

The new cases brought the cumulative case count to 1,179,812 as of May 23.

Ten duplicates, including eight recoveries, were removed from the total case count while 1,478 cases were “deactivated” after these were also tagged as duplicates.

With the 38 additional mortalities, the Covid-19 death toll in the Philippines crept toward 20,000.

As of May 23, a total of 19,951 Covid-19 patients had died. Twenty-five cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths upon validation. The case fatality rate remained at 1.69 percent.

There were 6,756 new recoveries, bringing the total to 1,109,226, or 94 percent of the country’s caseload.

With recoveries exceeding new infections, the number of active cases went down to 50,635 on Sunday, constituting 4.3 percent of the total case count.

The positivity rate remained elevated at 13 percent, although testing output was low at 42,855 on May 21.

The DOH said only three laboratories were not able to submit their data to the CDRS on May 21. These laboratories contributed an average of 4.1 percent of the samples tested and 2.6 percent of the positive results in the last 14 days to May 21.

Covid-19 cases nationwide have been declining since the second epidemic peak of over 10,000 cases a day in April, with the seven-day moving average falling below 6,000 on May 17.

In the last 14 days to May 22, the National Capital Region (NCR) still had the highest number of new cases, but the caseload has decreased by 22 percent to 16,198 from 20,828 a week ago on May 15.

NCR was followed by Calabarzon with 12,751 cases and Central Luzon with 9,016 cases, both lower than their running totals on May 15.

Western Visayas was still in the fourth spot, with cases increasing slightly to 4,535 on May 22, while Zamboanga Peninsula recorded 3,006 new cases, overtaking Cagayan Valley.

Among the cities and provinces, Quezon City also continued to post the highest two-week total at 3,841, followed by Cavite with 3,801, Laguna with 3,289, Bulacan with 2,746, and Batangas with 2,439. These were all lower than their caseloads a week ago.

In Southeast Asia, the Philippines reported the highest number of new cases at 40,145 among the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) member-countries in the last seven days from May 16 to 22, according to The Asean Post.

But the Philippines had a lower attack rate of 37 per 100,000 population than Malaysia’s 121 per 100,000 population and Thailand’s 38.5 per 100,000 population.

Malaysia recorded 38,785 new cases for the period among its 32 million population.

The Philippines, however, had an attack rate that was thrice Indonesia’s 12.3 per 100,000 population for the period.

Indonesia had the highest number of active cases at 91,240 as of May 22, followed by the Philippines with 54,326, Malaysia with 53,682 and Thailand with 42,955.

The rest of Asean had less than 10,000 active Covid-19 cases. (Marites Villamor-Ilano / SunStar Philippines)