FILE PHOTO These artworks made by one of the staff nurses bring joy not only to Philippine General Hospital’s pediatric patients but also to adults. Photo courtesy: Sheena Grace Diamante
MANILA, Philippines — New COVID-19 cases in the country continue to its downward trend with just 7,661 additional coronavirus infections recorded by the Department of Health on Wednesday.
This is the second day in a row that the Philippines logged less than 10,000 cases since the latest COVID-19 surge supposedly driven by the Omicron variant. On Tuesday, the figure was just at 9,493 cases, the lowest since January 5 when cases were above 10,000.
The number of COVID-19 cases has been on a consistent decline since January 21, when the country had more than 32,000 new cases. The country experienced its peak on January 15, with 39,004 infections.
With the addition of new cases on Wednesday, as well as 23,392 more recoveries and 43 more deaths, the country’s active cases now stand at 160,297.
The total recoveries, meanwhile, was at 3,362,904, and deaths were at 54,097. Overall, the country has recorded a total of 3,577,298 confirmed COVID-19 cases.
Of the active cases, 96.9 percent are either mild or asymptomatic. A total of 5,575 are tagged without symptoms, 149,892 are mild, 3,056 are moderate, 1,521 have severe conditions, and 316 are under critical status.
According to DOH, the positivity rate, or the percentage of people found coronavirus-positive among all those tested, was at 24.8 percent out of 40,453 people who got tested for COVID-19 on Monday.
Nationwide, 46 percent of intensive care unit (ICU) beds, 44 percent of isolation beds, and 45 percent of ward beds for COVID-19 patients are currently occupied. In Metro Manila, 40 percent of ICU beds, 34 percent of isolation beds, and 36 percent of ward beds are in use.
All testing laboratories were operational on Monday but two were not able to submit their data to the COVID-19 Document Repository System.
The DOH earlier confirmed that new COVID-19 cases are now decreasing, with the Philippines reclassified as moderate risk from the previous high risk pandemic status.