DOH reports 8,719 new COVID-19 cases

(FILE) A health employee of the Pagadian City government swabs a passenger from Manila on April 7 for coronavirus disease testing before entering the city. The test is provided free by the local government. Photo by Leah D. Agonoy, Inquirer Mindanao

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) reported on Friday additional 8,719 COVID-19 cases, bringing the country’s number of total active cases to 102,799.

According to the case bulletin of the DOH, the country has already recorded a total of 979,740 COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic. Of the caseload, 10.5 percent remain active infections, of which 97.8 percent are mild and asymptomatic.

The DOH said there were 13,812 more patients who have recovered, raising the number of recoveries to 860,412. Meanwhile, an additional 159 patients have died, pushing the death toll to 16,529.

The health department said recoveries and deaths represent 87.8 percent and 1.69 percent of the case count, respectively.

On the positivity rate, 17.1 percent of the 50,968 people who were tested were found positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for COVID-19.

According to the DOH, 28 duplicate entries, including 14 recoveries, were removed from the case count, while 77 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries are now reclassified as deaths after validation.

One laboratory was not operational on Wednesday, while six laboratories were not able to submit their data to the COVID-19 Document Repository System.

/MUF