COVID hits 360 more but PH’s active cases dip to 11,083 as 519 patients recover

COVID-19 test_positive. STOCK PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — The new coronavirus disease or COVID-19 infected 360 more people in the country but the number of active cases decreased to 11,083 as 519 patients managed to recover from the illness, the Department of Health (DOH) reported Monday.

The recorded new daily count is the second-lowest since December 7 and 11 when the DOH recorded 356 new cases on both days.

This also marks the 20th consecutive day the country recorded less than 1,000 new cases per day. According to the DOH, 97 percent or 348 of the 360 fresh cases occurred within the recent 14 days.

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

Including the latest number of new infections, the total confirmed COVID-19 cases nationwide stood at 2,836,803 as of December 13 while the sum of recovered patients since the pandemic hit the Philippines now reached 2,775,379.

At the same time, the DOH said the county’s coronavirus positivity rate is currently at 1.1 percent. A total of 35,811 individuals were recently tested for SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19.

Of the 11,083 active cases, the DOH explained, 45.8 percent suffer mild symptoms or were asymptomatic.  Specifically, the health agency noted, 4,292 COVID-stricken people were considered mild cases, while 782 were asymptomatic, 3,662 were moderate, 1,948 were severe, and 399 were critical.

Moreover, the DOH reported on Monday that 61 more patients succumbed to the new coronavirus disease. This increased the total number of fatalities to 50,341 since last year.

The fresh COVID-19 case bulletin of DOH, however, did not include data from four laboratories that were not operational and five laboratories that were not able to submit their results to the COVID-19 Document Repository System on time. The DOH’s report on Monday was based on the SARS-CoV-2 tests conducted on Saturday, December 11.

According to the DOH, these nine labs contribute 1.7 percent of samples tested and 0.8 percent of COVID-19 positive individuals on average.

The health agency likewise said that two duplicates – one of which was a recovery case – were removed from the total case count.

Also, the DOH said it removed from the total case count the 147 cases that were found to have tested negative for the new coronavirus.

“Of these, 147 are recoveries,” it noted.

Moreover, the DOH said 49 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.

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