New COVID-19 cases in PH breach 3,000-mark for 3rd straight day

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) reported on Sunday an additional 3,276 cases of COVID-19, pushing the number of total active coronavirus cases in the Philippines to 36,043.

This is the third straight day that the DOH reported new cases that breached the 3,000-mark.

Meanwhile, the health department also recorded 10,516 recoveries, bringing the number of patients who have recuperated from the disease to 545,853.

There were also 51 new deaths, which brings the death toll now to 12,516.

The total COVID-19 cases in the country is now at 594,412.

According to DOH, active cases compose 6.1 percent of the total caseload, while recoveries and deaths make up 91.8 and 2.11 percent of the count, respectively.

Of the active cases, 90.6 percent are mild, 4.2 percent are asymptomatic, 2.2 percent are critical, 2.1 percent are severe, and 0.91 percent are moderate cases.

Two duplicate entries were removed from the case count, while 13 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were also reclassified as deaths after final validation.

Seven laboratories were not able to submit their data to the COVID-19 Document Repository System on Saturday.

The DOH has observed an increase in the number of additional coronavirus cases as the country recorded a total of 118 cases of the B.1.1.7 variant of SARS-CoV-2 from the United Kingdom and 58 cases of the B.1.351 variant from South Africa.

The DOH earlier said that both variants have demonstrated increased transmissibility of the virus, with the South African variant also having a potential impact on vaccine efficacy.

With the presence of the said variants of concern, the OCTA Research, which monitors the trends of COVID-19 in the Philippines, projected that the country may have 5,000 to 6,000 new COVID-19 cases per day by the end of March.

JE