Rise in severe, critical cases due to mistagging — DOH

MANILA, Philippines — The increase in patients with severe and critical conditions is “proportional” to the rise in COVID-19 cases, the Department of Health (DOH) said yesterday.

According to DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, as more people test positive for COVID-19, the number of “classified patients that are mild, asymptomatic, severe, moderate and critical also increases.”

“As a proportion to this absolute number of cases, they naturally increase too,” she told a press briefing.

Vergeire noted that by the end of August, the number of severe and critical patients rose by 0.4 percent and by 0.5 percent by Sept. 22.

She added the rate of increase in cases for severe and critical is “not really significant because it is less than one percent.”

“It is because our absolute number is increasing… But looking at the proportion in the percentage across all the cases that we have right now, the increase is still less than one percent,” she said.

The other reason for the rise in severe and critical cases is mistagging.

The official added the DOH team tasked to validate deaths have observed that some patients who were tagged by Disease Reporting Units as severe and critical have actually died.

Vergiere made the statement in response to concerns earlier raised by Philippine College of Physicians vice president Maricar Limpin on the rising number of COVID-19 patients with severe and critical conditions.