The department also announced 10,474 recoveries, raising the survivor count to 3,388,399 – or 94.3% of the nationwide tally.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 4) – The Department of Health (DOH) on Friday reported 8,564 new COVID-19 cases, pushing the nationwide tally to 3,594,002.
It said 77% or 6,560 of the new infections were detected within the last 14 days. Metro Manila is the top contributing region with 907 cases, followed by Region 6 with 782, and Region 11 with 753.
Active cases or the number of people currently sick slightly went down to 151,389 – which is 4.2% of the total case count.
Among active infections, 139, 940 are considered mild; 6,522 have no symptoms; 3,107 are moderate; 1,500 are severe; and 320 are critical, according to the DOH.
The death toll also climbed to 54,214 – or 1.51% of the COVID-19 count – after 46 more people lost their lives to the disease.
Of the new deaths, 26 occurred in February; 18 in January; and two in October 2021.
The country’s positivity rate – or percentage of tested people who yielded positive results – continues to decrease at 24.3% based on 37,932 tests reported on Feb. 2.
A rate of above 20% is “critical” while below 3% indicates there is adequate testing, according to US non-profit 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 23 duplicates – including 14 recoveries – were deleted from the tally. It also reclassified 19 recoveries into deaths.
The total excludes data from six laboratories that failed to submit their reports on time. Those laboratories contributed an average of 1.7% of tested samples and 1.8% of positive individuals in the last 14 days, according to the DOH.
