Of the new infections, the DOH counted 17,157 (97%) that occurred within the past 14 days or from Jan. 12 to 25. The regions with the highest number of new cases in that period were Calabarzon (2,629 or 15%), Metro Manila (2,570 or 15%) and Central Luzon (2,266 or 13%).
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 25) — The Department of Health’s daily COVID-19 case tally dropped to 17,677 on Tuesday, which brought the nationwide total count to 3,459,646.
The tally is smaller than the previous day’s number which stood at over 24,000. However, the DOH said six laboratories were unable to submit their data, and were excluded from the count.
Of the total number of infections, 7.2% or 247,451 are active cases or people who currently have the disease — 235,181 have mild symptoms; 7,464 have no symptoms; 2,996 are in moderate condition; 1,502 have severe symptoms; and 308 are in critical condition.
The death toll also increased to 53,598 — 1.55% of all cases — after 79 more people lost their lives. Of the newly added fatalities, 60 (76%) occurred this month, and 19 last year: four in December, one in November, six in September, five in August, and one each in July, May and March.
Meanwhile, 33,144 others got well, raising the recovery count to 3,158,597 — 91.3% of the COVID-19 tally.
The DOH said it reclassified 35 initially tagged survivors as among the dead after validation, and deleted 87 duplicate cases, including 52 recoveries.
The six non-reporting laboratories contributed an average of 0.6% of tested samples and 0.8% of positive individuals in the last 14 days.
The positivity rate, or percentage of tested people with positive results, dropped to below 40% for the first time in 18 days. The figure is now at 37.2% based on 43,874 tests reported on Jan. 23.
The rate is still way beyond the ideal range of below 5%, which is recommended by the World Health Organization for countries to reopen.
