PH reports 17,677 new COVID-19 cases

MANILA, Philippines — The country reported 17,677 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, the lowest since January 6, but coming from fewer tests.

According to the Department of Health (DOH), the additional cases, together with 33,144 additional recoveries and 79 more deaths, placed the current number of active cases at 247,451.

The last time the country reported more than 17,000 new cases was on January 6 when there were 17,220 additional coronavirus infections.

However, most of Tuesday’s new cases were from 43,874 individuals who got tested for COVID-19 on Sunday, with a positivity rate of 37.2 percent. Most of Monday’s 24,938 new cases were from a 40.6 percent positivity rate coming from 59,896 tests on Saturday.

The country has so far confirmed 3,459,646 total cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.

Of the currently active cases, 98.1 percent are mild and asymptomatic. In specific numbers, 7,464 are asymptomatic, 235,181 are mild, 2,996 are moderate, 1,502 are severe, and 308 are critical.

According to DOH, 50 percent of intensive care unit (ICU) beds, 53 percent of isolation beds and ward beds, and 25 percent of ventilators nationwide are in use. Meanwhile, 44 percent of ICU beds, 45 percent of isolation beds, 51 percent of ward beds, and 24 percent of ventilators in Metro Manila are in use.

The DOH said all testing laboratories were operational on Sunday, but six laboratories were not able to submit their data to the COVID-19 Document Repository System. The six labs contributed on average 0.6 percent of samples tested and 0.8 percent of positive individuals in the last 14 days.

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