Active COVID-19 cases fall to 25,677

MANILA, Philippines — Active COVID-19 cases in the country fell to 25,677, the lowest since July 31, with the latest “mass recovery” of 11,290 mild or asymptomatic cases who have completed a two-week quarantine.

The Department of Health (DOH) reported 1,530 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, the sixth straight day of fewer than 2,000 daily cases, which brought to 407,838 the overall number of confirmed infections since the start of the outbreak.

Under its time-based mass recovery protocol, the DOH said 374,329 or 91.8 percent have already recovered.

But total deaths rose to 7,832 or 1.89 percent of total cases, after 41 people were confirmed to have died of COVID-19, including four people previously tagged as recovered.

This left 25,677 people or 7.1 percent still infected with the virus, the second lowest figure since the DOH began its weekly mass recovery on July 15.

The country had 22,327 active cases as of July 30, and 26,153 as of July 31.

Of the 25,677 active cases as of Nov. 15, 1,437 people or 5.6 percent were in critical condition.

The DOH said 21,183 or 82.5 percent had mild symptoms, 2,156 or 8.4 percent had no symptoms, 51 or 0.2 percent had moderate symptoms or nonsevere pneumonia, while 821 or 3.2 percent have severe symptoms.

Of the 1,530 new infections, 90 were from Cavite, 84 from Rizal, 79 from Manila, 78 from Davao City and 73 from Taguig City.

The DOH said nine testing laboratories did not submit their data on Nov. 14.

Under the DOH’s mass recovery adjustments, patients with mild or no symptoms are tagged as “recovered” after 14 days since the start of symptoms or the date of testing.

As a result, reported recoveries spike weekly.

But the DOH continues to report numerous cases of duplication and false tagging of recoveries, which turned out to be deaths after validation.