PH records 356 new COVID-19 cases; deaths breach 50,000 mark

Healthcare workers in Ilocos Sur get swab samples to test individuals for COVID-19. (Photo courtesy of Vigan city government)

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines recorded 356 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday, the Department of Health (DOH) said as it noted that the country’s death toll has breached the 50,000 mark.

This is the second time that the DOH has logged 356 COVID-19 cases in December, the lowest figure since July 2.

With the fresh cases, the country’s overall COVID-19 case count rose to 2,836,360. Seven duplicate recoveries and 189 cases found to have tested negative were removed from the total cases, the DOH said.

The DOH noted that 331 of the new cases were reported within the past 14 days. Metro Manila is the top region with new cases in the past two weeks, followed by Central Luzon, and Ilocos Region.

The country’s COVID-19 death toll, meanwhile, climbed to 50,096 with 135 additional fatalities. Of the new deaths, four were reported this month, 29 in November; 36 in October; 46 in September; 14 in August; five in July; and one in February.

The late announcement of fatalities is due to “late encoding of death information to COVIDKaya,” the DOH said.

The health agency likewise recorded 878 more recoveries, raising the recovery count to 2,774,891.

The DOH said, “125 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.”

The active cases stand at 11,373. Of which, 4,328 are mild cases, 3,747 are moderate cases, 1,991 are severe cases, 902 are asymptomatic, and 405 are critical cases.

Moreover, 1.1 percent of the 35,320 tests conducted on December 9 yielded positive results for COVID-19. Four laboratories were not operational on the said date while four others have not submitted data to the COVID-19 Document Repository System (CDRS).

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