DOH: 2,651 new infections, highest daily count this year

The Department of Health (DOH) said it recorded 2,651 new COVID-19 infections on Friday, making it the most infectious day so far in 2021. The number of new cases is also the highest in at least four months. The new cases bring up the Philippines’ total case count to 571,327.

In its daily case bulletin, the health department said active cases currently stood at 34,498, which was 6 percent of the country’s total COVID-19 caseload. Of this number, the majority or 88.4 percent were mild cases, 6.4 percent were asymptomatic, 2.3 percent were in critical condition, 2.1 percent were severe and 0.74 percent were moderate.

Meanwhile, 561 patients have recovered, bringing the total number of recoveries to 524,582. But another 46 patients died, which raised the death count to 12,247.

The DOH said it removed four duplicate cases from the total case count, while 20 cases previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths following final validation.

The more contagious UK variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 has so far been detected in six regions: Bontoc, Mountain Province; Sabangan, Mountain Province; La Trinidad, Benguet; New Bataan and Compostela in Davao de Oro; and Davao City.

The DOH earlier reported 31 cases of COVID-19 in Central Visayas that were detected to have “mutations of concern,” although it said its available data was “insufficient to conclude” that these mutations would have significant implications on public health.