The OCTA Research group’s recent risk assessment placed the country at medium or moderate risk based on reproduction rate, seven-day average of new cases, hospital ICU utilization and positivity rate the past week. From June 29 to July 5, the country recorded a daily average of 5,451 new infections, a 3% drop from the week before, the group said.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 6) — The country logged 4,114 new COVID-19 infections on Tuesday, pushing the nationwide tally to 1,445,832, the Department of Health said.
The DOH’s latest bulletin showed 49,613 or 3.4% of the total cases were active – with 90.8% experiencing mild symptoms, 3.9% without symptoms, 2.2% with severe symptoms, 1.62% in moderate condition, and 1.5% in critical condition.
The death toll climbed to 25,296 or 1.75% of the case count after 104 more people lost their lives to the disease.
The recovery count also rose to 1,370,923 – or 94.8% of the case tally – after 6,086 more patients were cleared of the coronavirus. The DOH said it reclassified 101 survivors – 38 into active cases and 63 into fatalities – after validation. It also removed 28 duplicates, including 22 recoveries.
The total excludes data from nine laboratories that failed to submit their reports on time, the DOH added. These laboratories contributed an average of 5.2% of samples tested and 6.7% of positive individuals in the last 14 days.
The daily positivity rate or percentage of people who tested positive dropped from 11.4% to 10.5% based on 31,536 tests on July 4. It’s the eighth day in a row that the positivity rate is below 12%. However, the figure is still far from the World Health Organization’s benchmark of below 5% . Experts said high rates may mean high transmission and there may be more cases that have yet to be detected.
Metro Manila is also at moderate risk with 644 new cases per day, 5% lower than last week.
Meanwhile, OCTA tagged Davao City as high risk, along with Bacolod, Iloilo City, General Santos, Baguio City and Tagum City in Davao Del Norte.
Davao City in particular logged the highest number of new cases per day in the entire country with an average of 303 new infections. It also registered an alarming 90% ICU ulitization rate.
Iloilo City’s ICU utilization rate was also “very high” at 94%. Bacolod, General Santos, Tagum and Butuan had very high positivity rates as well, but Butuan’s infection and ICU utilization figures were low.
The Department of Foreign Affairs also reported one new infection and one new recovery among overseas Filipinos. The total number of cases is now 20,910 in 95 countries with 4,664 cases verified by the DOH, the DFA added. The survivor count is 12,378 while the death toll remained at 1,243. There are also 7,289 patients undergoing treatment.
