Philippines logs 433 new COVID-19 cases; active tally at 9,376

The Department of Health (DOH) logged 433 new COVID-19 cases on Christmas Day, bringing the nationwide tally to 2,838,381.

According to the DOH’s case bulletin on Saturday, active infections stood at 9,376.

Of these cases, 458 are asymptomatic, 3,430 are mild, 3,337 are moderate, 1,777 are severe, and 374 are in critical condition.

The DOH said recoveries climbed by 369 to 2,777,818 while 137 new fatalities pushed the death toll to 51,187.

The COVID-19 positivity rate in the country was 1.6%, which is within the World Health Organization's guideline of less than 5%. The total number of conducted COVID-19 tests was 25,779.

The latest data also showed that 18% of 3,500 intensive care unit (ICU) beds for COVID-19 patients nationwide were in use.

At least 11% of the 12,300 ward beds in the country were utilized, while 16% of the 3,700 ward beds in the National Capital Region (NCR) were in use.

According to the report, two laboratories were not operational on December 23, while five laboratories failed to submit data to the COVID-19 Document Repository System.

Three duplicate cases were also eliminated from the total case count, according to the health agency. All three of these are recoveries.

At least 129 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation. — VBL, GMA News