INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — The country’s total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has breached the 1.5 million mark Saturday as the Department of Health (DOH) reported 6,040 more infections.
According to the DOH, there are now 47,257 active COVID-19 cases, which comprise 3.1 percent of the 1,502,359 cumulative count. Of the active infections, 93.8 percent are mild and asymptomatic.
Meanwhile, the DOH also recorded 7,213 recoveries, raising the recovery count to 1,428,504—95.1 percent of the tally.
But 122 more people succumbed to COVID-19, further pushing the death toll to 26,598. The case fatality rate in the country, or the percentage of people who died in all the cases, is at 1.77.
The DOH said 10.7 percent of 52,047 people who were tested were found positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus on Thursday.
All laboratories were operational on Thursday but three laboratories were not able to submit their data on time. Based on the data over the last 14 days, the three laboratories contribute 2.7 percent of samples tested and 1.3 percent of positive individuals on average.
Nine duplicates, including seven recoveries, were removed from the total case count, while 74 cases that were earlier counted as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.
Health authorities are closely monitoring the trend in COVID-19 cases in the country after the detection of 16 more cases of the highly transmissible Delta variant, including 11 local cases detected in communities. There are now 35 total cases of the said variant, of which at least two have died and the rest have recovered.