Newly-recorded Covid-19 cases in the country on Friday, Nov. 4, still remain under 1,000, the Department of Health (DOH) said.
The DOH recorded 776 additional cases of Covid-19. This is the fourth day in a row that daily cases were below 1,000.
The regions with the most cases in the last two weeks were the National Capital Region with 3,559 followed by Calabarzon with 2,188, Western Visayas with 1,472, Central Luzon with 1,243, and Central Visayas with 866.
The number of active cases in the country was at 18,085, the DOH said.
Since the pandemic started in 2020, the country’s caseload stood at 4,007,318. The recovery tally was at 3,925,22 while the death toll was at 64,211, the DOH said.
‘Underreported’
DOH Officer-in-Charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said that the positive results from antigen tests are not yet part of the official case tally.
“Sa ngayon, ang ating tinatala at nirereport officially sa ating mga kababayan would be coming from the official RT-PCR test. Yung mga antigen tests natin ay hindi pa kasama sa official tracking ng ating mga kaso (Right now, what we are recording and reporting officially to our citizens would be coming from the official RT-PCR test. antigen tests are not yet included in the official tracking of our cases),” she said.
“Although internally, the Department of Health is monitoring the use of antigen tests. Meron tayong ginagamit na (We are using) estimates as to the number of antigen tests being done per day,” she added.
Vergeire said that “we can say" that cases are “underreported.” However, what is important right now is the healthcare utilization rate.
“We are just using the number of cases right now for our trends para tayo ay magkaroon ng pagpaplano at mas makapagprepare (We are just using the number of cases right now for our trends so that we can plan and prepare better),” she said.
“What would be most important would be the number of severe and critical and the number of admissions in our wards and ICU for Covid-19,” she added.
The healthcare utilization rate is still at low-risk at this point as only 25.1 percent of hospital beds dedicated for Covid-19 patients are occupied, the DOH Covid-19 tracker showed.