DOH logs 10,623 new COVID-19 infections as active cases breach 74,000
New COVID-19 infections surpassed 10,000 on Friday, the first day of hard lockdowns in parts of the country including the capital region.
The Department of Health case bulletin counted 10,623 new cases, pushing the total to 1,638,345. It’s the highest number of cases reported in a day since April 17, when there were over 11,100 infections.
Active cases or currently sick patients are also on a three-month-high at 74,297 following the April 26 record of over 74,600. The active cases account for 4.5% of the COVID-19 total. At least 94.8% of currently ill patients have mild symptoms, 1.8% have severe symptoms, 1.2% are asymptomatic, 1.18% are in moderate condition while 1% are in critical condition.
The death toll climbed to 28,673 or 1.75% of the case tally after 247 more people lost their lives to the disease. This is also the highest daily casualty count since April 9, when over 400 people died, and the fourth highest daily fatality record.
Meanwhile, 3,127 others got better, raising the recovery number to 1,535,375 or 93.7% of the COVID-19 tally.
The DOH attributed the spike in cases to failure to follow health protocols and quarantine procedures as well as the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant among other variants of concern.
The agency added that it reclassified 159 survivors — nine into active cases and 150 into deaths — after validation and deleted 94 duplicate cases, including 87 recoveries and one fatality.
The total excludes data from six laboratories — one that was not operational on August 4 and five that failed to submit their reports on time. These laboratories contributed 1.7% of samples tested and 1.3% of positive individuals in the last 14 days, the DOH said.
Over 18% positivity rate
The positivity rate or percentage of people who tested positive rose from 17.3% on August 3 to 18.4% based on 58,372 tests reported on August 4. The rate is the highest since April 19 when it was at 19%.
The high figure is an indication that the country needs to conduct more coronavirus tests given that the benchmark for adequate testing is below 3% while a percentage above 20% shows inadequate testing efforts that may leave some cases undetected. This is according to US nonprofit Covid Act Now, an initiative used by the OCTA research team as basis for its projections.
The World Health Organization also states that the positivity rate should be below 5% to say the infection is under control.
The National Capital Region is under the strictest enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) until August 20 in an effort to curb the spread of the Delta variant, which has been detected in all of its cities and municipality.
The DOH also placed 37 areas under its highest “Alert Level 4” due to a rise in cases and hospitalizations. An area is under this alert status if its case classification is moderate-to-critical risk, and the COVID-19 beds are more than 70% occupied.
