The Department of Health (DOH) reported 6,297 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, March 7, the first day of its implementation of its weekly case bulletin.
In Monday's update, DOH said that there are 1,055 patients admitted with severe and critical Covid-19 infection.
The country's seven-day average daily cases is at 899 or 30 percent lower than the figures from Feb. 22 to Feb. 28. Among the new cases, 3 or 0.05 percent are with severe and critical Covid-19 infection.
Meanwhile, the agency also reported 615 deaths in the past week.
Of the 615 deaths, 39 occurred in March 2022 (6.3 percent), 195 in February 2022 (31.7 percent), 104 in January 2022 (16.9 percent),.
Four in December 2021 (0.7 percent), 16 in November 2021 (2.6 percent), 37 in October 2021 (6.0 percent), 53 in September 2021 (8.6 percent), 29 in August 2021 (4.7 percent), 11 in July 2021 (1.8 percent), 15 in June 2021 (2.4 percent), 16 in May 2021 (2.6 percent), 24 in April 2021 (3.9 percent), 35 in March 2021 (5.7 percent), five in February 2021 (0.8 percent), one in January 2021 (0.2 percent).
One in December 2020 (0.2 percent), nine in November 2020 (1.5 percent), four in October 2020 (0.7 percent), six in September 2020 (1.0 percent), six in August 2020 (1.0 percent), three in July 2020 (0.5 percent), one in April 2020 (0.2 percent), and one in March 2020 (0.2 percent) due to late encoding of death information to COVIDKaya.
On the other hand, for the 3,138 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds intended for Covid-19 patients, 807 or 25.7 percent are occupied while 18.4 percent of 24,678 non-ICU Covid-19 bdes are being used.
The bulletin also stated that there are currently 63,690,701 million Filipinos fully-vaccinated against Covid-19. DOH said that a total of 598,206 have been vaccinated from Feb. 28 to March 6. On the other hand, 10,554,093 have received booster shots.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that the agency saw the need to switch its focus to a more proactive and long-term health solution thereby deciding to provide weekly case bulletins instead of the daily case update.
"Dahil may higit sa (Because there are over) 63 million fully-vaccinated Filipinos na at patuloy na bumababa ang Covid-19 cases nakita ng DOH ang (and Covid-19 cases continue to decline, DOH saw the) need to shift our focus," she explained.
"Dahil dito, minabuti ng Kagawaran ng Kalusugan na gawing weekly ang ating Covid-19 case updates (Because of this, the DOH opted to turn the daily Covid-19 updates to weekly)," she added.
Vergeire also mentioned that this was done to reduce frequency for meaningful data and de-emphasize daily numbers to highlight long-term recovery. She added that they will still focus on healthcare capacity, vaccination rates, as well as weekly trends.