MANILA, Philippines — A total of 5,690 infections of COVID-19 were registered by the Department of Health (DOH) from December 19 to 25, less than the number of cases recorded the previous week at 7,752.
According to the DOH in its weekly report, the registered infections translated to a daily average of 813, 25 percent lower than the previous week’s 1,082.
Only three, or 0.05 percent of these cases, were tagged as severe or critical, bringing the active number of severe or critical cases to 516.
However, 172 deaths were added to the country’s COVID-19 death toll, which is at 65,236 as of Dec. 25, based on the COVID-19 tracker. DOH said 24 deaths occurred in the past two weeks, while the rest were backlogs recorded as early as August 2020.
The weekly data also showed that the non-ICU utilization rate dropped from 22.5 to 17.6 percent, while the ICU utilization rate also dipped from 20.4 to 19.1 percent.
Regarding the progress in vaccination against COVID-19, fully-vaccinated individuals are now 73,756,732 (94.44 percent of target population), with 19,196 new vaccinations, while individuals with booster shots now total at 21,145,843 after 48,789 additional individuals were inoculated in the same period.
PH logs 636 cases on Monday
Meanwhile, the DOH logged 636 fresh infections on Monday, Dec. 26, slightly raising active cases to 15,472.
The recorded cases pushed the country’s total COVID-19 caseload to 4,062,191, with 3,981,457 recoveries and 65,262 deaths.
Comparatively, this recorded number is lower than the recorded cases on Sunday, which was at 666.
Metro Manila continued to lead the list of regions with the most number of cases in the past two weeks at 4,704, followed by Calabarzon at 2,092, and Central Luzon at 1,020.
In terms of individual areas, Quezon City led with 1,133 infections, followed by Manila with 589 and Cavite with 569.