Philippines logs a record-high number of 382 COVID-19 deaths due to 'technical issue'

The Department of Health reported 382 deaths due to COVID-19 today, a record-high that was reportedly due to a “technical issue” that caused lower reporting of casualties in recent weeks.

“The said issue caused incomplete fatality numbers and data to be encoded and as a result, there were 341 deaths prior to April 2021 that went unreported,” the DOH said in a note on the case bulletin released today.

The DOH said the “technical issue” came after one of the information systems that collects hospital data “experienced a technical failure which caused incomplete fatality numbers and data to be encoded.”

The DOH said that despite the additional cases, the case fatality rate for the country “remains low at 1.7%,” with average deaths per day for March at 28.

“There has been no reported spike in the number of deaths anywhere in the country,” the DOH said.

With the reported casualties today, there are now 13,817 who died due to the COVID-19 since the pandemic started in the Philippines.

The DOH also reported 9,373 new COVID-19 cases today, pushing the total active cases now to 152,562. Total cases are now at 812,760.

There were also 313 reported recoveries.