10,775 new COVID-19 cases push active tally to 39K

The Philippines on Wednesday documented 10,775 more coronavirus disease infections, increasing the Philippines' total tally to 2,871,745.

According to the Department of Health data, of the 10,775 fresh cases, 10,688 (99%) occurred within the recent 14 days from December 23 to January 5, 2022.

"The top regions with cases in the recent two weeks were NCR (7,420 or 69%), Region 4-A (1,719 or 16%) and Region 3 (798 or 7%)," DOH said.

The number of fresh cases is within the the OCTA Research projection that nationwide new cases may grow from 10,000 to 11,000 this Wednesday from 5,434 on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the country's active infections rose to 39,974 from 29,809 recorded on January 4, 2022. Of the 39,974,  1,294 are asymptomatic, 33,866 are mild, 2,983 are moderate, 1,512 are severe, and 319 are critical.

The Philippines' positivity rate climbed to 31.7% from January 4's positivity rate of 26.2%. A total of 44,643 total COVID-19 tests were conducted.

The World Health Organization's standard of less than 5% positivity rate. If the rate is 5% or higher, it means there is a high transmission rate of the virus.

The Philippine death toll caused by COVID-19 climbed to 51,662, with 58 more deaths.

Of the 58 fatalities, eight each occurred in December 2021 and in November 2021 (14%), 24 in October 2021 (41%), 15 in September 2021 (26%), and three in August 2021 (5%) "due to late encoding of death information to COVIDKaya."

A total of 605 more recoveries were recorded, bringing the total recovery tally to 2,780,109.

Occupancy rate of nationwide intensive care unit beds went up to 27% and 13% utilization rate for mechanical ventilators across the country.

In Metro Manila, 37% of ICU beds are occupied while 18% of ventilators are in use.

The Philippines' total caseload was also modified by deleting 39 duplicates, including 35 recoveries, and 110 negative cases, which are all recoveries.

Also, 57 recoveries were reclassified as fatalities after final validation.

All labs were operational on January 3, 2022 but DOH said there were nine non-reporting labs.

In the past 14 days  DOH said these nine labs contribute, on average, 2.2% of samples tested and 5.3% of positive individuals.—LDF, GMA News