Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 9) — The Department of Health announced on Monday 8,900 more COVID-19 infections, pushing the country’s case count to 1,667,714.
Of the total number of infected, 78,480 or 4.7% are currently ill patients, the DOH said.
Around 94% of the active cases are tagged as mild, 2.1% as asymptomatic, 1.18% as moderate, 1.7% as severe and 1% as critical.
The department also said 7,937 were added to the survivor count, which has reached 1,560,106. This means 93.5% of the total infected have already recovered.
Meanwhile, six new deaths were logged, four of which were mistakenly announced as recoveries in previous reports.
This is the lowest single-day count in the death toll since July 23, when the DOH reported no new fatalities due to a technical glitch. The low count also comes after the country tallied over a hundred new COVID-19 deaths for four days in a row. The DOH has yet to explain the disparity.
A total of 29,128 people in the country have now succumbed to the viral illness, which make up 1.75% of all cases.
The DOH said it removed 102 duplicate entries from its data, including 98 recoveries. It added that seven cases earlier tagged as survivors were reclassified as active cases.
The update also showed that the country’s positivity rate, or the percentage of infected individuals out of all tested, continues to rise and is now at 21.3%. This is based on 50,096 tests conducted on Aug. 7.
The positivity rate was at 20.3% the day before and was at around 15% at the start of the month. A percentage of above 20 suggests inadequate testing efforts, according to the U.S. nonprofit Covid Act Now.
Among Filipinos abroad, the Department of Foreign Affairs said 90 new cases were recorded over the past week. Three new deaths and 27 more recoveries were also logged in the last seven days.
The DFA has so far confirmed 21,731 virus-hit overseas Filipinos, of whom 12,558 have been cleared of the infection and 1,325 have died.
Following new reports from Asia and the Pacific, it said it has now validated COVID-19 cases among Filipinos in 100 countries and territories.
