The positivity rate – or percentage of tested people with positive results – remained at 28.1% based on 57,260 tests reported on September 6, the third day in a row this week that the rate was higher than 28%.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 8) — The country recorded 12,751 new COVID-19 infections on Wednesday – lower compared to the numbers in the past two weeks – due to technical errors encountered in obtaining data, the Department of Health said.
The DOH assured the public it is coordinating with the Department of Information and Communications Technology to resolve the matter.
“Due to technical issues encountered in the extraction of updated data from COVIDKaya last Sept 7, 2021, relatively low numbers are reported today,” the Health department said in an addendum on its case bulletin. “We can expect higher numbers in the next few days as we resolve the issue.”
The past 14 days, daily infections have been over 13,000. The DOH also encountered technical problems in the COVID-19 data uploading and monitoring system back in March.
The case total is now 2,134,005 with 7.1% or 151,135 active cases or people currently sick. At least 91.6% of active cases have mild symptoms, 3.7% are asymptomatic, 2.54% are in moderate condition, 1.5% are in severe condition, and 0.7% are in critical condition.
The death toll also jumped to 34,672 – which is 1.62% of the COVID-19 count – after 174 more people lost their lives to the disease. Meanwhile, 20,151 others got better, raising the number of recoveries to 1,948,198 or 91.3% of the infection total.
The DOH said it reclassified 80 survivors into deaths after validation, and deleted 54 duplicate cases, including 46 recoveries.
The total excludes data from five laboratories that failed to submit their reports on time, the department added. These laboratories contributed an average of 2.2% of tested samples and 2.7% of positive individuals in the last 14 days.
According to US nonprofit Covid Act Now – which OCTA researchers use for reference – the critical positivity rate is above 20% and indicates the need for more coronavirus tests. A positivity rate of below 3% shows that testing is sufficient.
The World Health Organization, on the other hand, says the positivity rate should be below 5% to indicate that the infection in an area has been controlled.
Metro Manila is currently under modified enhanced community quarantine until September 15, or until the government enforces its pilot granular lockdowns with alert levels. The National Capital Region was supposed to shift to the more relaxed general community quarantine on Wednesday, before officials decided on a last-minute change.
