Philippines records 14,610 new COVID-19 cases; active tally climbs to 106,672

The Philippines on Monday registered  14,610 new cases of the coronavirus disease, pushing the total active cases to 106,672.

This is the third straight day that more than 14,000 fresh cases were reported in the country.  

Monday's active tally is also the highest since April 22, 2021, which reported 107,988 active cases.

In the Department of Health's 4 p.m. COVID-19 case bulletin, the fresh virus cases increased the country's total count of cases to 1,755,846, while seven laboratories were not able to submit their data to COVID-19 Document Repository System.

Of the 106,672 active cases, 96.1% are mild, 0.9% are asymptomatic, 0.89% are moderate, 1.3% are severe and 0.7% are in critical condition.

The nation's fatality tally soared to 30,366, with 27 new deaths.

A total of 1,618,808 patients won the severe respiratory disease, including 10,674 additional recoveries.

Meanwhile, COVID-19 positivity rate of the Philippines reached 23% while the total number of tests conducted was at 58,471. The international standard for positivity rate must be less than 5% of COVID-19 samples.

DOH once again revised its COVID-19 tally after 380 duplicates were removed from the total case count.  Of these, 369 were recoveries and one case is a death

Also, three cases previously classified as recoveries were validated as active cases and 22 cases previously tagged as recoveries were classified as deaths.

As for nationwide health care capacity, DOH data indicated that 71% of the country’s intensive care unit beds are utilized, while 50% of the mechanical ventilators are also in use.

Further, in National Capital Region, 72% of ICU beds are occupied while 53% of mechanical ventilators are in use.

Enhanced community quarantine (ECQ), which imposes several movement restrictions, was imposed over Metro Manila, country's center of economy, until August 20. Authorities have yet to declare an extension for the lockdown but the more transmissible Delta variant has been tagged as the most dominant variant in the country. 

So far, there are 807 Delta variant cases that sprouted all over the country.

Recently, the Philippines also documented the first case of Lambda variant, a coronavirus variant first detected in Peru, Argentina.

Experts said there is no cause for alarm yet for the newly-detected variant in the Philippines as Delta variant is still the most concerning threat during the pandemic.—LDF, GMA News