(FILE) Health workers assist residents of Baesa, Quezon City to undergo swabbing at the mobile testing unit parked along Mendez Street on Wednesday, July 1. /INQUIRER/GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE
MANILA, Philippines — The active COVID-19 cases in the Philippines reached 60,887 on Saturday as the Department of Health (DOH) logged 8,147 new infections.
The active cases represent 3.8% of the total number of infections recorded since the start of the pandemic, which is at 1,500,189, according to the DOH’s daily case bulletin.
The DOH also recorded 9,117 new recoveries, bringing the total to 1,500,189, which represents 94.4% of the total case count.
This is the second consecutive day that the country yielded a daily COVID-19 infection tally that surpassed the 8,000-mark
Most of the patients or 93.8 percent of active cases have exhibited only mild symptoms, while 1.3 percent were asymptomatic.
At least 2.1 percent of the patients currently have severe symptoms while 1.2 percent are in critical condition.
The DOH said that of the 54,857 tests conducted on July 29, 14.7 percent tested positive for the coronavirus.
Six duplicates were removed from the total case count. Meanwhile, two cases previously tagged as recoveries were validated to be active cases while 102 cases tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths.
The health department cannot yet say whether the increase in cases could be attributed to the spread of the highly contagious COVID-19 Delta variant, which was first detected in India.
The national government, acting on the appeal of local chief executives, decided to place Metro Manila under the most restrictive enhanced community quarantine from Aug. 6 to Aug. 20 to curb the spread of COVID-19 cases.