Of the newly reported cases, 8,463 or 97% occurred within the past two weeks, from Jan. 21 to Feb. 3.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, February 3) — The Department of Health (DOH) logged 8,702 new COVID-19 infections on Thursday, bringing the nationwide tally to 3,585,461.
Although the case count is higher than the 7,661 recorded the previous day, it marks the third time in a row that fresh cases were below 10,000.
Of the total number, 4.3% or 153,335 are active cases or currently sick patients, with 143,493 mild cases, 4,923 without symptoms, 3,067 moderate cases, 1,528 with severe symptoms, and 324 in critical condition.
The death toll rose to 54,168 — 1.51% of all infections — after 71 more people lost their lives. Among the 71 deaths, 66 (93%) occurred last month while five were from last year, two in October, and one each in September, June and April.
Meanwhile, 15,290 people recuperated from the disease, raising the recovery count to 3,377,958 or 94.2% of the total cases.
Five laboratories did not submit their data on time and were excluded from the count, the DOH said.
These laboratories contributed an average of 5.7% of tested samples and 4.9% of positive individuals, it added.
The areas with the highest number of cases in the said period were Western Visayas (1,039 or 12%), Central Visayas (799 or 9%) and the Davao Region (785 or 9%).
The belated reporting is due to delays in uploading information to the COVIDKaya data storage system, the DOH explained.
The DOH said it reclassified 29 initially tagged as survivors as among the dead after further validation, and deleted 539 duplicate cases, including 207 recoveries.
The positivity rate, or percentage of people tested with positive results, rose slightly to 25.5% based on 42,446 tests reported on Feb. 1.
The number, although below 30% for the fourth straight day, is still beyond the ideal rate of below 5% recommended by the World Health Organization for countries planning to reopen borders.
