Philippines Covid Deaths Rise by Record, Boosted by Late Reports
Philippines Covid Deaths Rise by Record, Boosted by Late Reports
(Bloomberg) -- The Philippines posted its highest daily increase in Covid-19 deaths, most of which occurred in June and only confirmed by the Department of Health on Sunday.
The Southeast Asian nation added 162 deaths to its tally, breaking the previous record of 50 deaths on April 12, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. New infections stood at 2,124 to bring the total to 56,259, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a briefing on Monday.
Broken down, 51 of the deaths were from July and 90 were from last month, most in the central Philippines region where new virus hotspots have emerged, Vergeire said.
Not all of the data is immediately transmitted to the national government by local authorities who have direct access to what’s happening on the ground, said Vergeire, who expects the death, recovery and infection count to rise further as officials improve data collection. The Philippines has been working to digitize its reporting system and train new users so it can reflect more real-time data, she said.
Despite the spike in Covid-19 deaths, the Philippines is still “faring better” than other countries with a fatality rate of only 2.7% compared to the 4.5% global average, the health agency said. Its positivity rate, the percentage of people who test positive for the virus out of the total number tested, is at 7.8%, “faring worse” than the World Health Organization’s 5% benchmark.
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