8,564 new COVID-19 cases bring active tally to 151,389

KIDDIE VAX A guardian inquires about the vaccination program for children age 5 to 11 at Manila Zoo, one of the sites chosen for the jabs. The plan has been postponed from Friday to Monday next week because the Pfizer doses will not arrive on time. —RICHARD A. REYES

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines reported 8,564 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, the fourth straight day that additional cases were below 10,000, showing the consistent decline of coronavirus infections in the country.

According to the Department of Health (DOH), this raised the country’s active COVID-19 cases to 151,389, out of 3,594,002 total confirmed cases.

The DOH also reported 10,474 more recoveries and 46 additional deaths, placing the total recoveries to 3,388,399 and fatalities to 54,214, respectively.

The DOH posted a positivity rate of 24.3 percent out of 37,932 individuals who got tested for coronavirus last Wednesday.

Some 96.7 percent of the active cases are mild or asymptomatic. In total, 6,522 are asymptomatic, 139,940 are mild, 3,107 are moderate, 1,500 are severe, and 320 are critical.

Forty-four of intensive care unit (ICU) beds and 42 percent of isolation and ward beds nationwide for COVID-19 patients are currently occupied, according to DOH. Meanwhile, 38 percent of ICU beds, 32 percent of isolation beds, and 35 percent of ward beds in Metro Manila are in use.

All testing laboratories were operational on Wednesday, but six were not able to submit their data to the COVID-19 Document Repository System, the DOH said.

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