A suspected COVID-19 patient rests in a parking lot turned into a covid ward outside a hospital in Binan town, Laguna province south of Manila on September 6, 2021, with record infections fuelled by the hyper-contagious Delta variant. (Photo by Maria Tan / AFP)
MANILA, Philippines — Another 310 COVID-19 patients have succumbed to the disease, the Department of Health (DOH) confirmed in their COVID-19 bulletin for Friday, September 17.
This pushed the country’s death toll to 36,328, which includes 176 patients who were previously tagged as recovered and now were reclassified as deaths.
The total deaths represents 1.56 percent of the total confirmed cases in the country, which now stands at 2,324,475.
Earlier, the country recorded over 20,000 new infections again, pushing the active case count to 188,108, as only 10,028 new recoveries were tallied. The active case count represents 8.1 percent of the total confirmed COVID-19 cases.
DOH reminded the public to continue observing health protocols against the pandemic as they expect cases to continue rising.
“Sa mga susunod na araw ay maari pang tumaas ang ating mga kaso ng COVID-19. Ang pagsunod sa minimum public health standards, maiging pagsasagawa ng PDITR strategies, at pagbabakuna ay nanatiling pinakapabisang depensa sa COVID-19,” DOH said.
“Mahalaga rin na tayo ay mag-isolate at makipagugnayan sa BHERTs kung tayo ay may sintomas ng COVID-19. Ang maagang konsultasyon at pagpapatest ay makatutulong upang maputol ang hawaan sa mga bahay, komunidad, at sa mga lugar na pinagtatrabahuhan,” it added.
DOH said that four laboratories were not even able to submit their data to the COVID-19 Document Repository System even if all laboratories were operational last September 15.
Based on the data from the last 14 days, the two laboratories that were not able to submit data accounted for 0.7 percent of all the samples tested, and 0.6 percent of all the positive cases.