Philippines COVID-19 active tally leaps to 56K with 17,220 new cases

The Philippines on Thursday recorded 17,220 new COVID-19 cases bringing the nationwide COVID-19 tally to 2,888,917.

Based on the Department of Health (DOH)’s latest bulletin, the new cases brought the country's active case count to 56,561, of which 1,837 are asymptomatic, 49,988 are mild, 2,954 are moderate, 1,470 are severe, and 312 are in critical condition.

Ngayong 4 PM, Enero 6, 2022, ang Department of Health ay nakapagtala ng 17,220 na karagdagang kaso ng COVID-19. Samantala ay mayroon namang naitalang 616 na gumaling at 81 na pumanaw. pic.twitter.com/qIrNgqowPU

— Department of Health (@DOHgovph) January 6, 2022

The DOH said of the 17,220 new reported cases, 17,104 (99%) occurred within the recent 14 days from December 24 to January 6, 2022.

The top regions with most cases in the recent two weeks were the National Capital Region (NCR) with 11,563 or 68%, followed by Region 4-A with 3,165 or 19% and Region 3 with 1,126 or 7%).

Meanwhile, at least 616 more patients recovered from the viral disease, increasing the total to 2,780,613.

The death toll climbed to 51,743 with 81 new fatalities.

The Philippines’ COVID-19 positivity rate was at 36.9%, which is higher than the 31.7% positivity rate on Wednesday.

Both are higher than the World Health Organization's requirement target of less than 5% positivity rate, which means there is a high transmission rate of the virus.

The total conducted COVID-19 tests were at 59,847.

The latest data also showed that 31% of 3,500 intensive care unit (ICU) beds for COVID-19 patients nationwide are in use.

At least 27% of the 12,500 ward beds in the country were utilized, while 50% of the 4,000 ward beds in the NCR were in use.

Based on the report, the DOH said all laboratories were operational since January 4, while there were 11 laboratories that failed to submit data to the COVID-19 Document Repository System.

The health department reported 46 duplicates were removed from the total case count. Of these, 46 are recoveries.

In addition, at least 66 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.—LDF, GMA News