Philippines reports 3,045 new COVID-19 cases, highest count in 2021

The Department of Health (DOH) on Friday reported a record-high 3,045 new coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections, bringing the total to 587,704, as five laboratories failed to submit data on time.

This is the highest reported daily case count this year.

Total recoveries climbed to 535,207 with 178 new ones while 19 more fatalities brought the death toll to 12,423.

Eight duplicate cases were also removed from the total case count.

“Moreover, three cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation,” the DOH said.

There are also 40,074 active cases undergoing treatment or quarantine, of which 89.7 percent are mild, 5.6 percent are asymptomatic, 1.9 percent are severe, and 2 percent are in critical condition.

Data from the DOH also showed that 60 percent of the country’s intensive care unit beds are available while 78 percent of the mechanical ventilators are ready for use.

The OCTA Research group has said Metro Manila averaged over 900 new COVID-19 cases per day over the past week, a 50% increase from the previous week and a 119% rise from two weeks ago.

Meanwhile, the Philippine Genome Center has detected the more transmissible South Africa coronavirus variant in 52 COVID-19 cases and the United Kingdom variant in 31 additional patients.

These figures bring the total number of South Africa variant cases to 58, UK variant cases to 118, and cases with mutations of concern to 85.—LDF, GMA News