MANILA, Philippines — The number of new COVID-19 infections on Friday jumped to 2,961, the highest since Nov. 1, bringing active cases to 14,233, said the Department of Health (DOH).
The positivity rate also increased by 4 percent from Thursday’s 6.6 to 10.3 percent in the 30,526 individuals tested. This is double the World Health Organization’s threshold of 5 percent — which is supposed to indicate controlled transmission of the SARS-CoV-2.
Cases have doubled in the past three days from Wednesday’s 889 to Thursday’s 1,623 and now today’s 2,961.
Meanwhile, of the new cases, the DOH said 99 percent or 2,927 of the 2,961 cases recorded occurred within the recent 14 days, with the National Capital Region listed as the top region with 68 percent of the reported cases or 1,981 in the recent two weeks; followed by Region 4-A with 431 or 15 percent; and Region 3 with 179 or 6 percent.
The DOH also reported 481 new recoveries. With this, confirmed cases now total 2,843,979, while recoveries to 2,778,242.
Of the active cases, DOH said 63.2 percent suffer mild or asymptomatic cases, specifically, 8,365 individuals suffer mild cases, 628 asymptomatic, 3,197 moderate, 1,701 severe, and 342 critical.
The DOH also recorded 132 new deaths, increasing the death toll to 51,504.
These numbers were registered while two laboratories were not operational when the tests were conducted on Dec. 29, said the DOH, while six other labs were not able to submit their data to the COVID-19 Document Repository System.
“Based on data in the last 14 days, the 8 labs contribute, on average, 0.4% of samples tested and 0.3% of positive individuals,” the DOH said.
The health agency likewise said that 10 duplicates were removed from the total case count, 7 of which were recoveries and one was death.
The DOH also said that it removed from the total case count the 232 cases that were found to have tested negative for COVID-19.
Moreover, the DOH said 117 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.