COVID-19 hits 310 more as PH’s coronavirus death toll tops 51,000

Test tube, coronavirus positive. STOCK PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines posted 310 new COVID-19 cases while the total number of deaths due to the new coronavirus disease surpassed the 51,000-mark, the government reported Friday.

Of the newly reported cases, 272 contracted the virus the past 14 days, the Department of Health (DOH) said.

The fresh infections drove the overall case count to 2,838,032 and Metro Manila remains the top region with the most number of new cases, it added.

READ: New COVID-19 cases in NCR slightly up on Dec. 23 but remains below 100

Meanwhile, the passing of 69 more COVID-19 patients drove the death tally to 51,050. The demise of 10 additional death cases happened within this month, according to the DOH, while eight occurred in November; 26, in October; 19, in September; two, in August; one, in May; and three, in February.

The count of recovered patients, on the other hand, stood at 2,777,661 on Friday with 227 more patients recuperating from the illness

Of the 9,321 active cases, 3,382 are moderate cases, 3,295 are mild cases, 1,795 are severe cases, 474 are asymptomatic, and 375 are critical cases, based on the DOH’s latest report.

Meanwhile, the positivity rate increased anew at 1.4 percent, the health agency noted. A total of 28,561 COVID-19 tests were conducted on December 22, wherein two laboratories were not operational while five others have not submitted their data to the COVID-19 Document Repository System.

READ: Uptick in NCR’s COVID-19 positivity rate may be due to holidays — OCTA Research

The DOH then explained that nine duplicates and 172 cases initially tagged as recoveries but turned out to be negative cases were removed from the overall case count.

Likewise, 57 cases, previously labeled as recoveries, were pulled out from the tally as they were reclassified as deaths after final validation.

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