Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 5) — The country recorded over 20,000 new COVID-19 cases for the third day in a row.
The Department of Health on Sunday said 20,019 more people were confirmed infected with the coronavirus, bringing the total case count to 2,090,984. Of this number, 7.6% or 157,438, are active cases.
Data from five testing laboratories that failed to submit on time were not part of the update. These facilities contributed around 0.9% of all samples tested and 1.2% of positive cases over the past two weeks, the DOH said.
The report said 92% of those currently ill have mild symptoms, 3.4% are asymptomatic, 2.51% are tagged as moderate cases, 1.4% as severe, and 0.7% as critical.
Despite the sharp increase, the latest tally of active cases is around 200 lower than the day before, with 20,089 more survivors and 173 new deaths also confirmed.
Of the newly announced fatalities, the department said 58 were mistakenly classified as recoveries in previous reports.
A total of 34,234 nationwide have died due to COVID-19, while 1,889,312 have beaten the illness. These account for 1.65% and 90.8% of the case tally, respectively.
After final validation, the DOH said it removed 119 duplicates from its data, including 95 survivors and one death.
Its bulletin also showed a positivity rate of 27.5% based on 73,472 tests reported on Sept. 3. This means at least 1 in 4 people who had themselves tested that day was found positive for the coronavirus.
A percentage higher than 20% indicates lack of sufficient testing, which also suggests new cases are actually higher than what is currently reported, according to the U.S. nonprofit Covid Act Now. The organization said an area has adequate testing if its positivity rate is below 3%.
The World Health Organization, meanwhile, set the standard positivity rate to below 5% to show that the infection has been controlled.
OCTA: Downward trend in NCR possible in 2 weeks
Even as new cases remain high, OCTA Research fellow Guido David said the reproduction rate, or the number of people infected by a single case, is slowly declining.
In a tweet, David said the reproduction number has decreased to 1.31.
He also told CNN Philippines that if the current trajectory continues, there would likely be a downward trend in cases in Metro Manila by the third week of September.
The DOH earlier said new infections in NCR may hit 30,000 a day by end-month, but according to David, OCTA is so far not expecting such numbers.
“Hindi namin nakikita ‘yan sa ngayon [We’re not seeing that yet],” David said. “In fact, sa projections namin, hindi naman siya aabot ng [based on our projections, new cases in NCR wouldn’t reach] 10,000 or 9,000 per day.”
He said current figures suggest new cases in the capital region would reach only up to 7,000 daily by the end of September.
