Phl logs 17,220 fresh infections

The Philippines reported 17,220 new Covid-19 cases, the highest in nearly three months, the Department of Health (DoH) said Thursday.

Based on the agency’s latest case bulletin, the fresh infections brought the country’s total caseload to 2,888,917. It also pushed the active cases count to 56,561.

Of the active cases, 49,988 are mild, 2,954 are moderate, 1,837 are asymptomatic, 312 are critical, and 1,470 are severe.

The DoH said that of the 17,220 reported cases, 17,104 occurred over the past two weeks from 24 December 2021 to 6 January 2022.

The top contributing regions are still the National Capital Region with 11,563 cases, CALABARZON with 3,165 cases, and Central Luzon with 1,126 cases.

Meanwhile, the agency reported 616 new recoveries which brought the country’s total recuperated patients to 2,888,197.

The country’s Covid-19 death toll is now at 51,743, after 81 new fatalities were recorded.

Of the 81 deaths, six occurred in January 2022, six in December 2021, eight in November 2021, 19 in October 2021, 24 in September 2021, 12 in August 2021, three in July 2021, two in June 2021, and one in May 2021 due to late encoding of death information to COVIDKaya.

The positivity rate is at 36.9 percent of the 59,847 individuals who were screened for the respiratory disease on 4 January.

The country’s current positivity rate was way beyond the benchmark of five percent set by the World Health Organization.

The DoH also said that a total of 48 duplicates were removed from the total case count. Of these, 46 are recoveries.

In addition, 66 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.

It also said that all laboratories were operational on 4 January, however, 11 laboratories were not able to submit their data to the COVID-19 Document Repository System.

“Based on data in the last 14 days, the 11 non-reporting labs contribute, on average, 2.8 percent of samples tested and 4.5 percent of positive individuals,” it added.