DOH, PSA have different COVID-19 death tallies

The DOH and PSA have different tallies of COVID-19 deaths due to their varying criteria.

DOH only includes confirmed cases in its tally, while PSA reports all deaths diagnosed by a physician as suspect, probable, or confirmed COVID cases.

Preliminary figures from the PSA show 27,967 total deaths due to COVID-19 in 2020, with 8,209 having virus identified and 19,758 without.

PSA data also shows that COVID-19 was among the leading causes of death in 2020, accounting for 4.9% of total deaths.