DOH logs 36 new COVID-19 cases, lowest daily tally since March 2020

The Department of Health on Sunday logged 36 new COVID-19 cases in the Philippines, the lowest daily total since 13 were reported on March 20, 2020—two years, 10 months, and 16 days ago near the start of the pandemic.

This makes it the smallest tally of new cases in 1,052 days. It is also the sixth straight day there have been fewer than 200 new cases reported. 

The tally of active cases has also decreased to 9,378, the lowest in 218 days since 9,105 active cases were reported on July 2 last year.

According to the DOH's COVID-19 tracker, the new cases bring the country's caseload to 4,073,826. Total recoveries increased by 217 cases to 3,998,597, and the death toll rose by 12 to 65,851.

The region with the most new cases in the last two weeks is Metro Manila with 614 cases, followed by Calabarzon with 268; Region XI with 175; Region VI with 151; and Region III with 138.

COVID-19 bed occupancy is at 18.4%, with 4,753 beds occupied and 21,049 vacant.

Independent monitoring group OCTA Research said that the country's positivity rate—the percentage of people who were found positive for COVID-19 among the total number of individuals tested—dropped to 1.8% on Friday.

The DOH last week said that it expects the arrival of bivalent vaccines—second-generation jabs formulated to target the Omicron variant—donated by the COVAX facility and other countries by the end of March. — BM, GMA Integrated News