New COVID-19 cases less than 1,000 for second straight day
MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) reported only 975 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, the second straight day that the country had less than 1,000 additional coronavirus infections.
There were only 890 new cases of the disease on Wednesday. According to DOH, Thursday’s new cases and 1,029 more recoveries and 193 additional deaths brought the current active COVID-19 cases to just 17,796.
Overall, the country has so far recorded a total of 2,829,618 confirmed cases of infectious disease. Of the tally, 2,763,947 are recoveries and 47,875 are deaths.
The positivity rate remains low at 2.8 percent out of 38,961 individuals who were tested last Tuesday.
According to DOH data, of the 17,796 current active cases, 52.7 percent are mild, 5.4 percent are asymptomatic, 21.49 percent are moderate, 14.4 percent are severe, and 6 percent are critical.
At the start of November, there were only 7.2 percent severe and 3 percent critical patients among active cases. The number of mild infections was higher at 72.6 percent, and asymptomatic and moderate cases were 4.9 percent and 12.32 percent, respectively.
The DOH, however, explained that the increase in the percentage of severe and critical COVID-19 cases in its daily bulletin is just a result of delayed validation on the status of these cases and the lower number of active infections.
Meanwhile, on hospital utilization, 30 percent of intensive care unit (ICU) beds, 27 percent of isolation beds, 16 percent of ward beds, and 19 percent of ventilators in the country are currently being used.
In Metro Manila, 29 percent of ICU beds, 25 percent of isolation beds, 20 percent of ward beds, and 21 percent of ventilators are being used.
According to DOH, two testing laboratories were not operational on Tuesday and three laboratories failed to submit their data on time. The health agency said these five laboratories contributed 0.3 percent of samples tested and 0.2 percent of positive individuals in the last 14 days.
Seventeen duplicate entries were removed from the total case count, while 181 recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.
Despite the country’s lower number of new COVID-19 cases, the DOH reminded the public not to be complacent in observing health protocols to prevent another wave of coronavirus infections.
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