21,819 new COVID-19 cases push active tally to 77K

The Department of Health (DOH) on Friday logged 21,819 new COVID-19 cases increasing the nationwide COVID-19 tally to 2,910,664.

This is the highest since September 12, which reported 21,411 cases. On September 11, the Philippines logged a record-high 26,303 infections.

According to the DOH’s latest bulletin, the new cases brought the country's active case count to 77,369, of which 2,438 are asymptomatic, 70,321 are mild, 2,837 are moderate, 1,461 are severe, and 312 are in critical condition.

The Health department said of the 21,819 reported cases today, 21,656 or 99% occurred within the recent 14 days from December 25 to January 7, 2022.

The top regions with cases in the recent two weeks were National Capital Region (NCR) with 13,634 or 63%, followed by Region 4-A with 4,129 or 19% and Region 3 with 2,084 or 10%.

A total of 973 more patients recovered from the respiratory disease, bringing the total tally to 2,781,424.

The number of deaths climbed to 51,871 with 129 new fatalities.

Meanwhile, the country’s COVID-19 positivity rate was at 40%, which is higher than the World Health Organization's requirement target of less than 5% positivity rate.

It means that there is a high transmission rate of the virus. The total conducted COVID-19 tests were at 70,049.

The latest data also showed that 32% of 3,500 intensive care unit (ICU) beds for COVID-19 patients nationwide are in use.

At least 31% of the 12,500 ward beds in the country were utilized, while 59% of the 3,900 ward beds in the NCR were in use.

The DOH said all laboratories were operational since January 5, while there were 10 laboratories that failed to submit data to the COVID-19 Document Repository System.

It reported 72 duplicates were removed from the total case count. Of these, 51 are recoveries and  one death.

At least 111 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.—LDF, GMA News