421 new COVID-19 cases push active tally to 9,750

The Department of Health on Tuesday detected 421 new coronavirus disease infections, bringing the total count of confirmed cases to 2,839,111.

In its 4 p.m. case bulletin, the DOH said that 410 of these new cases occurred  within the recent 14 days from December 15  to December 28, 2021. Metro Manila reported the highest number of new cases with 170 or 41%, followed by Calabarzon with 55 or 13% and Central Luzon with 39 or 10%.

Active COVID-19 cases reached 9,750, with 489 asymptomatic cases, 3,766 mild cases, 3,343 moderate cases, 1,778 severe cases, and 374 critical cases.

The country's COIVD-19 death toll climbed to 51,213 after reporting only two new deaths.

Two deaths were recorded from September 2021 due to late encoding of death information to COVIDKaya, DOH also noted.

Data from DOH also showed that 248 more patients survived the severe respiratory ailment, increasing the total to 2,778,148.

The nationwide health system is still low with 18% intensive care unit beds are occupied and 10% mechanical ventilators  in use.

At the metropolis, 21% ICU beds are in use while 12% of ventilators are utilized.

The DOH revised the total tally after deleting two duplicates and 100 recoveries that were found to be negative.

Also, the recovery tally was revised after two recoveries were reclassified as deaths.

Two laboratories were non-operational on December 26, 2021 while 16 laboratories did not submit their data to COVID-19 Document Repository System (CDRS).

In the last 14 days, DOH figures showed that the 18 non-reporting labs contribute, on average, 2.9% of samples tested and 2.4% of positive individuals.

The current positivity rate in the country also rose to 2.6% but it is still within the  World Health Organization's target of less than 5%. A total of 18,122 total tests were also conducted.

The Philippines has so far reported four cases of the more contagious Omicron coronavirus variant, which the WHO suspects will become the next dominant variant globally. — BM, GMA News