The regions with the highest number of new cases in that period were Metro Manila (863 or 13%), Davao Region (683 or 10%) and Western Visayas (657 or 10%).
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 6) — The Department of Health (DOH) reported 8,361 new COVID-19 infections on Sunday, bringing the nationwide tally to 3,609,568.
Of the total, 3.5% or 126,227 are active cases or currently sick patients with 116,598 mild cases, 4,864 without symptoms, 3,008 in moderate condition, 1,447 with severe symptoms, and 310 in critical condition.
The death toll climbed to 54,526, which is 1.51% of all infections, after 312 more people died. Among the 312 fatalities, 77 occurred this month and 56 in January. There were 177 from last year: seven in December, 15 in November, 31 in October, 40 in September, 42 in August, 22 in July, five in June, six in May, five in April, and four in February.
Meanwhile, 18,431 others got better, raising the recovery count to 3,428,815.
Two laboratories did not submit their reports on time and were excluded from the count, the DOH said. These laboratories contributed an average of 0.02% of tested samples and 0.01% of positive individuals in the last 14 days.
Of the newly reported infections, 6,568 (79%) occurred within the past 14 days or from Jan. 24 to Feb. 6.
The DOH also recorded fatalities from as early as 2020 — one each in November and August. The belated reporting is due to late encoding of information in the COVIDKaya data storage system, the agency explained.
The DOH said it reclassified 243 initially tagged survivors as among the dead after validation and deleted 264 duplicate cases, including 194 recoveries.
The positivity rate, or percentage of tested people with positive results, continued to drop to 21.5% based on 38,675 tests reported on Feb. 4.
The World Health Organization recommends a positivity rate of below 5% for countries to reopen.
