Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 22) — The country broke its daily coronavirus record on Monday, with 8,019 more cases confirmed by the Department of Health.
This beat the previous high of 7,999 new cases logged just two days before.
It also raised the total to 671,792, of which 80,970 or 12.1% are active cases. This tally of currently ill patients is the highest since August 15 of last year and is the second highest since the pandemic started.
Of the active cases, the DOH said 95.4% exhibit mild symptoms, 2.2% have no symptoms, 0.9% are critical cases, 1% are severe, and 0.52% are moderate.
The department also added 103 to the recovery count, which climbed to 577,850. This means 86% of all those infected have already gotten well. Meanwhile, four more fatalities were confirmed, raising the death toll to 12,972, which accounts for 1.93% of the case tally.
The case bulletin also showed the latest daily positivity rate — or the percentage of those infected out of all tested in a single day — stood at 14.9% as of noon of March 21. This is considered high as the World Health Organization recommends that the number be kept below 5%.
Two testing laboratories failed to submit their daily report on time and were not yet included in the official figures, the DOH said. It added that it removed 21 duplicates from the overall tally, including seven recoveries, after final validation.
Among the reasons cited to be behind the spike in cases are the new and more contagious COVID-19 variants — one of which was first detected in the United Kingdom, while the other in South Africa. Health spokesperson Maria Rosario Vergeire confirmed the variants have spread in all 17 cities and municipality in Metro Manila.
To help address the surge, authorities have placed the capital region and the nearby provinces Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal under a stricter general community quarantine. The four areas, also known as the NCR Plus, are placed under one ‘bubble’ setup from March 22 to April 4. This means only authorized persons can do essential travel into and out of these areas.
READ: EXPLAINER: What you need to know about the GCQ bubble
Among Filipinos abroad, the Department of Foreign Affairs logged 15 new COVID-19 infections, pushing the total to 15,985. Nine new recoveries raised the survivor count to 9,700, while fatalities stayed at 1,047. These bring the active cases to 5,238.
