It added that only 27,040 tests were conducted as of noon of April 19 with a daily positivity rate of 17.9%.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 20) — The country listed 7,379 new COVID-19 infections, raising the total number to 953,106, the Department of Health’s Tuesday case bulletin stated.
However, the department noted that 19 laboratories did not conduct tests on April 18, which led to the lower daily case tally. The count also excludes data from eight laboratories that were unable to submit their reports on time. The DOH has been reporting at least 8,000 new infections daily for the past 12 days.
Active cases continue to drop with 127,006 sick patients in the latest count, equivalent to 13.3% of the total infections. At least 96.9% of the active cases showed mild symptoms, 1.3% have no symptoms, 0.7% are in moderate condition, 0.6% are in a critical state, and 0.48% cases are moderate, the bulletin showed.
Meanwhile, a surge of recoveries was recorded with 21,664 cured patients, pushing the survivor count to 809,959 or 85% of the case tally.
The death toll also climbed to 16,141 or 1.69% of the COVID-19 total after 93 more patients succumbed to the disease. The DOH said 20 of the newly added deaths were mistakenly reported as recoveries in the previous report while 18 duplicate cases were deleted, including seven survivors.
Among overseas Filipinos, 19 new cases were detected, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs. The total is 18,160 in 91 countries with 4,077 infections verified by the DOH, the DFA said. Six more Filipinos died while 13 recovered, bringing the death toll to 1,121 and the number of survivors to 11,162. There are also 5,877 still battling the coronavirus.
