MANILA - The Philippines' health department said Monday that 1,055 or 16.1 percent of COVID-19 patients seeking treatment currently in hospitals are severe and critical cases.

In the first release of its new COVID-19 bulletin that has done away with the number of additional infections per day, the Department of Health also said intensive care unit (ICU) bed utilization rate nationwide stood at 25.7 percent (807 out of 3,138 ICU beds).

The DOH said that from March 1 to 7, the country logged 6,297 new cases, or an average of 899 per day, which is 30 percent lower than the cases reported from Feb. 22 to 28.

Of the additional cases during the week, three were severe and critical.

The DOH said Sunday that the country's cumulative total of confirmed infections has reached 3,667,542, of which 48,793 were active.

During the past week, 615 deaths were verified by the agency, broken down as follows in terms of occurrence: 39 this month; 195 in February; 104 in January, and the rest, between March 2020 and December 2021.

The DOH said there was late encoding again of death information to the COVIDKaya, which is now "being coordinated with the Epidemiology and Surveillance Units to ensure information is up to date."

There were 26 duplicates removed from the total case count as these were found to be recoveries.

The DOH also reported that 551 cases previously tagged as recoveries were also later reclassified as deaths.

The Philippines' daily virus cases might decline to 500 by end of the month even as its downward trend was slowing, according to Guido David, fellow of OCTA Research Group.

• PH daily COVID tally might decline to 500 by end-March: OCTA Research

"Inaasahan nating patuloy pa rin itong bababa by end of March. Baka mga a few hundreds na lang yan, 300 to 500, tulad nung nakita natin nung December last year bago pumasok ang omicron," David said in a televised public briefing.

(We're expecting this to continue to decline by end of March. It might be only a few hundreds, 300 to 500, just like what we saw December last year before omicron entered the country.)

The revised COVID-19 bulletin, meanwhile, indicated that nearly 63.7 million people have been fully vaccinated against the respiratory disease, of whom, some 10.5 million have already received their booster shots.

The total accounts for 70.76 percent of the target population for inoculation.

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