There are 1,407 newly confirmed COVID-19 cases, pushing the country’s total to 402,820, the fourth straight day new cases counted fewer than 2,000, the Department of Health (DOH) said Thursday.
The new cases for the day, however, do not include data from 17 accredited laboratories that failed to submit data on time, according to the DOH latest bulletin.
“A total of 17 labs were not able to submit their data to the COVID-19 Data Repository System (CDRS) on November 11, 2020,” the DOH said.
Cases of recoveries increased by 211 over the previous day, with the virus claiming 11 more lives in the country, raising the death toll to 7,721. This is 1.92 percent of the total cases.
The total number of recovered patients stood at 362,417, accounting for 90 percent of the total recorded cases. This is 90 percent of the total cases.
Interim Guidelines
Following the World Health Organization reclassification of the severity of symptoms among COVID-19 cases, DOH issued Department Memorandum 2020-0381 or the “Interim Guidelines on the COVID-19 Disease Severity Classification and Management” also updating its disease severity classification to include “moderate” to ensure alignment with international definitions.
In effect, the DOH said the following classifications would be utilized in the case reporting of health facilities and disease reporting units:
â— Mild disease—symptomatic COVID-19 patients with fever, cough, fatigue, anorexia, myalgia, other non-specific symptoms like nasal congestion, sore throat, nausea and vomiting, or loss of smell or taste prior to the onset of respiratory symptoms but with NO signs of pneumonia or hypoxi a
â— Moderate disease—child, adolescent, or adult with clinical signs of non-severe pneumonia (cough, dyspnea or respiratory rate of 21-30 breaths/minute for adults, and cough or difficulty in breathing and fast breathing or chest indrawing for children)
â— Severe disease—Adolescent, or adult with clinical signs of severe pneumonia or severe acute respiratory infection; or child with clinical signs of pneumonia accompanied by either central cyanosis, severe respiratory distress, general danger signs like inability to breastfeed or drink, unconsciousness or convulsions, or fast breathing
â— Critical disease—patients manifesting acute respiratory distress syndrome, sepsis or septic shock.
In addition, COVID-19 patients who did not develop any sign or symptom shall be tagged as “asymptomatic.”
Vaccine buyer
If the DTI-attached Philippine International Trading Corporation (PITC) is the designated COVID-19 vaccine buyer, Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto said it should waive its customary one percent to four percent service fee.
“This is not the time to reap a pandemic windfall,” stressed Recto.
When private corporations are waiving fees and writing off interests, he said a state agency should avoid being accused of disaster profiteering.
The PITC charges a commission of 4 percent for projects with a total contract price (TCP) of P25 million and below, and 1 percent for projects with a TCP of P700 million and above.
It could potentially earn hundreds of millions in commission for what is essentially an easy “pasabuy” gig.