(FILE) A medical frontliner administers a swab test on a resident. Image from Facebook/ Tuguegarao City Information Office
MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health on Sunday recorded 2,227 additional COVID-19 cases, and 3,152 recoveries to bring down the number of active cases to 21,101.
The new cases only account for 2.8 percent of the 39,874 individuals tested, the first time the Philippines recorded a positivity rate under 3 percent after first dropping below 5 percent on Nov. 10 — the threshold set by the World Health Organization (WHO) to indicate that coronavirus transmission is under control.
With these numbers, confirmed cases and recoveries now stand at 2,826,410 and 2,758,235, respectively.
On the other hand, of the 21,101 patients currently infected, 56.9 percent have mild cases, 4.4 percent are asymptomatic, 20.30 percent are moderate, 13 percent are severe, and 5.5 percent are critical.
The DOH also recorded 175 new deaths, raising the country’s death toll to 47,074.
Amid the low numbers, however, the DOH said two laboratories were not able to submit their data in the total tests conducted on November 19. These laboratories contribute, on average, contribute 1.5 percent of samples tested and 0.5 percent of positive individuals.
The health agency added that 125 duplicates were removed from the total case count — of which 107 were recoveries and 4 were deaths.
“In addition, 191 cases were found to have tested negative and have been removed from the total case count. Of these, 189 are recoveries,” said the DOH.
“Moreover, 147 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation,” it added.