Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 6) — The country continues to log a sharp spike in COVID-19 cases, with the Department of Health announcing 17,220 new infections on Thursday, the highest in over three months.
This is nearly a 60% increase from Wednesday’s count of 10,775 and marked the biggest daily rise since Sept. 27.
However, the DOH said 11 testing laboratories failed to submit their reports on time. Based on figures over the past two weeks, these facilities contributed around 2.8% of all samples tested and 4.5% of all positive results.
A total of 2,888,917 people nationwide have now been hit with COVID-19, of whom 2% or 56,561 are currently ill.
According to the department, 49,988 of the active cases are considered mild; 1,837 are asymptomatic; 2,954 are moderate; 1,470 are severe; and 312 are critical.
The DOH further detailed that 99% or 17,104 of the newly confirmed cases were detected within the last 14 days. The top three contributing regions remain unchanged, with Metro Manila coming in first after registering 11,563 more infections, followed by Calabarzon with 3,165, and Central Luzon with 1,126.
The viral illness also claimed 81 more lives, bringing the death toll to 51,743.
Only six of the newly reported fatalities occurred in January, the DOH said. The rest were recorded late, including six in December, eight in November, 19 in October, and 42 from May to September.
The department also reclassified as deaths 66 cases erroneously encoded as recoveries.
Meanwhile, the number of survivors rose to 2,780,613 with 616 more added.
Highest positivity rate
The country also registered a new positivity rate record of 36.9%, breaking the previous high of 31.7% just a day before. This is based on 59,847 tests reported on Jan. 4, and it means 1 in 3 people tested for COVID-19 turned out positive.
The percentage, considered “critical” by US nonprofit Covid Act Now, suggests insufficient testing and that there are likely more infected individuals who have gone undetected. The organization said the positivity rate should be kept below 3%, while the World Health Organization set the benchmark at below 5%.
After final validation, the DOH also said it deleted 48 duplicate entries from its data.
OCTA Research fellow Guido David projected new infections nationwide would further go up to over 20,000 on Friday — earlier than his previous projection that it could happen starting next week. The DOH, meanwhile, said cases are seen to surpass the Delta variant peak by month-end.
