Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 22) – The Department of Health (DOH) reported 30,552 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday.
The DOH said 95% or 41,471 of the new infections were detected within the last 14 days. Calabarzon is now the top contributing region with 5,991, followed closely by Metro Manila with 5,989, and Central Luzon with 2,563.
Active cases or the number of currently sick people due to COVID-19 went down to 280,619 from Friday’s all-time high of 291,618.
Among the active cases, 267,236 are considered mild; 8,591 have no symptoms; 2,996 are moderate; 1,491 are severe; and 305 are critical, according to the DOH.
The 280,619 active cases constitute 8.3% of the COVID-19 total, which jumped to 3,387,524.
The DOH also announced 41,471 recoveries, raising the survivor count to 3,053,499 – or 90.1% of the nationwide tally.
The death toll also climbed to 53,406 – or 1.58% of the case count – after 97 more people lost their lives to the disease.
Of the new deaths, 54 occurred in January; five in December 2021; two in November 2021; 15 in October 2021; nine in September 2021; three in August 2021; eight in July 2021; and one in November 2020.
The country also recorded a positivity rate – or percentage of tested people who yielded positive results – of 45.1% based on 68,049 tests reported on Jan. 20.
A rate of above 20% is “critical” while below 3% indicates there is adequate testing, according to US nonprofit Covid Act Now. The World Health Organization suggests a positivity rate of below 5% for an area that has controlled the infection.
The DOH said 111 duplicates – including 71 recoveries – were deleted from the total case count. It also reclassified 57 recoveries into deaths.
All laboratories were able to submit their data to the COVID-19 Document Repository System.
