High recovery, low new cases cut COVID-19 infection count to 52,696

FILE PHOTO/ NIAID-RML/Handout via REUTERS.

MANILA, Philippines — A mixture of low new COVID-19 cases and high recovery numbers has led to a lower active infection count for Tuesday, June 22, down to just 52,696, according to the Department of Health (DOH).

The DOH reported only 3,666 new infections, which is much lower than before when it was around 6,000.

As a result of the 6,810 recoveries, the aggregate recovery count rose to 1,291,389.  Overall, COVID-19 cases in the country are now at 1,367,894.

DOH, however, said that the low case count might not be immediately due to an actual lowering of cases but due to a low turnout of tests from laboratories since Sunday.

While all laboratories were operational last June 20, at least 12 could not submit their data to the COVID-19 Document Repository System.  Also, based on the data from the last 14 days, the 12 laboratories that did not submit data contributed to around 3.0 percent of all the samples tested and 3.1 percent of all the positive cases.

“Ang mababang kaso na nai-report ngayong araw ay dulot ng mababang output ng mga laboratoryo noong Linggo, June 20, 2021. Tinitingnan din ng DOH ang iba pang mga posibleng dahilan ng mababang bilang ng mga kaso na naitala ngayong araw,” DOH said.

(As a result of the low output of laboratories on Sunday, June 20, 2021, fewer cases were reported today. DOH is also investigating other possible causes for the low number of cases reported today.)

Most of the patients, or 91.0 percent of active cases, have still exhibited mild symptoms only, while 4.2 percent were asymptomatic.  At least 2.0 percent of the patients currently have severe symptoms, while 1.4 percent are in critical condition.

Of the 31,222 tests conducted from June 20, DOH said that 11.8 percent tested positive.

In COVID-19 bed capacity in the National Capital Region, 46 percent of intensive care unit beds are being utilized, while 38 percent of isolation beds are occupied.  All over the country, 57 percent of ICU beds for COVID-19 patients are occupied, while 47 percent of isolation beds are being used.

Eleven duplicate entries were also removed from the total case count, with eight of them being recovered.  After final validation, 56 cases previously classified as recoveries were reclassified as deaths.

abc