MANILA - The Philippines' health department said Monday that 707, or 12.6 percent of COVID-19 patients in hospitals, were in severe and critical condition.

The figure is higher than the previous week's 692 severe and critical patients, which comprised 11.9 percent of COVID-19 hospital admissions at that time.

Up to 542, or 18.4 percent of 2,951 intensive care unit (ICU) beds for COVID-19, were occupied, according to the health agency.

The country recorded an average of 272 daily fresh COVID-19 cases in the past 7 days, the DOH said.

On April 4-10, the country tallied 1,906 new COVID-19 cases. The average daily cases is 29 percent lower than those reported from the previous week.

During the past week, the DOH said it verified 428 COVID-related fatalities, citing late encoding of death information. The deaths occurred in the following months:

• 31 occurred in April 2022
• 65 in March 2022
• 45 in February 2022
• 51 in January 2022
• 6 in December 2021
• 2 in November 2021
• 17 in October 2021
• 34 in September 2021
• 33 in August 2021
• 7 in July 2021
• 6 in June 2021
• 11 in May 2021
• 19 in April 2021
• 16 in March 2021
• 8 in February 2021
• 5 in January 2021
• 5 in December 2020
• 8 in November 2020
• 9 in October 2020
• 11 in September 2020
• 13 in August 2020
• 14 in July 2020
• 10 in June 2020
• 2 in May 2020

Some 66 million people in the country have been fully vaccinated against the respiratory disease, of whom 12.4 million have received their booster shots.

The government is considering to redefine full vaccination by imposing validity on inoculation cards, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said.

• Philippines mulls redefinition of fully vaxxed validity, push boosters

"We are set to redefine these fully vaccinated individuals. But right now, we’re still into discussing this with our experts as to how we’re going to have this validity for our vaccination cards so we can be able to improve further our booster vaccination," she told ANC's Headstart.

The DOH spokesperson earlier said experts have yet to recommend redefining full vaccination as it would cause confusion among the public.

• New 'fully vaxxed' definition to cause confusion: DOH

Ahead of the Holy Week, the agency urged the public to maintain minimum health standards such as wearing of face masks and avoiding crowds. It also advised against kissing of statues of saints and other sacred images.

• Public warned vs overcrowding, kissing religious statues during Holy Week: DOH

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