PH posts 1,712 new COVID-19 cases; lowest daily tally since Dec. 30

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 — The Department of Health (DOH) on Sunday logged 1,712 new COVID-19 cases, along with 3,686 more recoveries.

This marks the lowest daily count the country has tallied this year, replacing Saturday’s 1,923.

Based on the DOH’s case bulletin, 94 percent or 1,611 of the new infections were logged within the last 14 days, with NCR listed as the top region posting the highest number of new COVID-19 cases at 316 (20 percent) in the last two weeks.

The DOH also posted an 8.8 percent positivity rate in the 28,500 tests conducted nationwide, also the lowest since the 6.6 percent of December 30, 2021.

It should be noted, however, that tests conducted on average in February were generally much lower compared to the number of tests conducted in January, or during the height of the COVID-19 surge caused by the Omicron variant of concern.

The new recoveries, on the other hand, further reduced active infections to 60,532, of which 92.4 percent currently suffer mild or asymptomatic cases, specifically, 55,102 individuals suffer mild cases, 856 are asymptomatic, 2,848 moderate, 1,421 severe, and 305 critical.

The DOH also said that it added the deaths of 77 people — 51 of which happened in February, to the total COVID-19 death count.

With this, the total confirmed infections are now at 3,652,203, while recoveries sit at 3,535,987 and the death toll at 55,684.

The health agency likewise said 257 duplicates were removed from the total case count, 246 of which were recoveries.

Moreover, the DOH said 61 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.

/MUF