Among overseas Filipinos, the Department of Foreign Affairs said it confirmed 41 more cases over the past week, for a total of 23,156.
Up to 2,385,616 people nationwide so far have been infected, with 176,850 or 7.4% currently sick.
Around 92.7% of these active cases are mild, 2.7% asymptomatic, 2.6 % moderate, 1.4% severe, and 0.6% critical.
The DOH said the count excludes data from five non-reporting testing laboratories, which contributed around 1.6% of all samples tested and 1.7% of positive cases over the last 14 days.
The department also confirmed 146 new deaths, of which 53 were erroneously tagged as recoveries in previous updates. These pushed the total fatalities to 36,934.
Meanwhile, 20,171 new survivors brought the recovery count to 2,171,832.
The bulletin also showed the positivity rate was at 26.3%, which means at least 1 in 4 of the 72,770 tests reported on Sept. 18 turned out positive for the coronavirus. This percentage is considered critical by the US nonprofit Covid Act Now.
Earlier in the day, the DOH said the highly contagious Delta variant is now the most common lineage among sequenced samples in the country after it accounted for 24.16% of the total. A single person infected with the variant can spread the virus to around eight or nine others, health authorities said.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 20) — The Department of Health announced 18,937 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, while the cumulative death toll approached 37,000.
The weekly report also listed 63 new survivors and three more deaths, bringing the tallies to 13,391 and 1,385, respectively.
The DFA said no new cases were recorded in Europe and America. It also noted there has been a “consistent increase” in the number of recoveries compared to new cases in the last three weeks.
