FILE PHOTO: Persons identified for contact tracing in connection to COVID-19 patients undergo swabbing procedures inside UP-Philippine General Hospital, Manila. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / LYN RILLON
MANILA, Philippines — A total of 889 new COVID-19 cases were reported by the Department of Health (DOH) on Wednesday. This is the highest registered daily tally in over a month which also raised the number of active infections to 10,418.
The positivity rate also jumped by almost 2 percent, reaching its highest since Nov. 13 at 4.5 percent of the 27,615 tests conducted. This is closely nearing above the World Health Organization’s threshold of 5 percent — which is supposed to indicate controlled transmission of the SARS-CoV-2.
Based on a COVID-19 cases table shared by the DOH to reporters, the positivity rate started to increase on Dec. 19, still a week before Christmas. The rate slowly rose from 0.8 on Dec. 19 to 2.6 on Dec. 28, before jumping to Wednesday’s 4.5 percent.
The latest daily tally is also higher by almost 700 than Dec. 19’s 203 registered new cases.
Of the new COVID-19 cases, the DOH said 98 percent or 869 of the 889 cases were recorded within the recent 14 days, with the National Capital Region (NCR) being listed as the top region with 564 cases or 65 percent in the recent two weeks; followed by Region 4-A with 86 or 10 percent; and Region 3 with 53 or 6 percent.
The DOH also reported 214 new recoveries, which marks the sixth consecutive day that the number of new COVID-19 cases outnumbered recovery cases since the tally dipped below 1,000.
With this, confirmed COVID-19 cases now total 2,839,790, while recoveries are at 2,778,131.
Of the 10,418 active cases, the DOH said 47.2 percent are mild or asymptomatic cases, specifically, 4,384 with mild cases; 536 are asymptomatic; 3,346 are moderate; 1,778 are severe, and 374 are critical.
The DOH also recorded 28 new COVID-19 deaths; raising the country’s death toll to 51,241.
The DOH said two laboratories were not operational when the tests were conducted on Dec. 27. Meanwhile, one other laboratory was not able to submit their data to the COVID-19 Document Repository System.
“Based on data in the last 14 days, the 3 labs contribute, on average, 0.4% of samples tested and 0% of positive individuals,” the DOH said.
The health agency likewise said that 16 duplicates were removed from the total case count, 13 of which were recoveries.
The DOH added that it removed from the total case count the 194 cases that were found to have tested negative for COVID-19.
“Of these, 193 are recoveries,” it noted.
Moreover, the DOH said 25 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.
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