PH’s COVID-19 death toll nears 35,000 after 79 new deaths — DOH

(FILE)  Workers are finding themselves busier than ever at New Life Crematorium in Biñan City in Laguna, where families who have lost loved ones to COVID-19 have to wait for at least two days to secure a slot. —RICHARD A. REYES

MANILA, Philippines — The country’s COVID-19 death toll is now at 34,978  after the Department of Health (DOH) reported 79 new deaths on Saturday.

The death toll is 1.59 percent of all cases, the DOH said.

The DOH also reported its highest tally of daily COVID-19 cases at 26,303 which brought the country’s caseload to 2,206,021.

The new all-time high record beats the number of COVID-19 cases reported on September 9 at 22,820 cases.

The country’s active COVID-19 cases are now at 185,706 or 8.4 percent of all cases, with 95.5 percent having mild or no symptoms.

Meanwhile, the total number of recoveries in the country is now at 1,985,337 or 90 percent of all cases, after 16,013 new recoveries were reported.

“Moreover, 32 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation,” the DOH said.

The latest data from the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 tracker reported that the Philippines is only behind Indonesia in terms of COVID-19 cases in Southeast Asia with 4,158,731 cases.

Indonesia also leads the tally when it comes to the death toll in the region, as it posted 138,431 deaths.

As of posting, the COVID-19 global case count is now at 223.8 million including 4.6 million deaths, according to the tracker.

/MUF