Of the new deaths, five (2%) occurred this month, 17 (7%) last month, and 16 (7%) in January.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 4) — The Department of Health (DOH) recorded 853 new COVID-19 infections on Friday, less than 1,000 for the third straight day and the lowest daily count so far this year.
The case tally is now at 3,665,747 with 1.4% or 50,230 active cases or currently sick patients.
Of the active cases, 45,300 are experiencing mild symptoms; 2,773 are in moderate condition; 1,411 have severe symptoms; 450 have no symptoms; and 296 are in critical condition.
The death toll climbed to 56,770 — 1.55% of all infections — after 232 more people lost their lives.
Meanwhile, 1,062 got well, raising the survivor count to 3,558,747, which is 97.1% of the infection tally.
Two laboratories did not submit their data on time, the DOH added. These laboratories contributed an average of 0.3% of tested samples and 0.3% of positive individuals in the last 14 days.
There were also 169 from last year: seven in November, 18 in October, 36 in September, 22 in August, nine in July, seven in June, 14 in May, 20 in April, 31 in March, four in February, and one in January. Twenty-five were also traced to as far back as 2020: one in December, seven in November, four in October, five in September, six in August, and two in July.
The belated reporting was due to late encoding of information to the COVIDKaya data storage system, the DOH explained.
The DOH said it reclassified 219 initially tagged survivors as among the dead after validation, and deleted 11 duplicate cases, including five recoveries.
The positivity rate — or percentage of tested people with positive results — dropped slightly to 4.3% based on 25,496 tests reported on March 2.
The World Health Organization recommends that positivity rates remain below 5% for at least 14 days for countries or regions to reopen.
