THE Department of Health (DOH) reported a total of 6,913 new COVID-19 infections today, lower than yesterday’s 7,772 count, according to the DOH COVID-19 Case Bulletin issued today, October 17, 2021.
The number of cases today is the lowest case tally since August 3, 2021 when the DOH logged 6,879 cases.
This brings the total number of COVID-19 infections in the country to 2,720,368 cases.
However, active cases shot up again to 81,641 today after registering a 85,048 count yesterday. Active cases or patients are those undergoing treatment in government hospitals and temporary quarantine facilities.
And also, after recording 13,363 recoveries yesterday, the number of people who recovered from the disease went back down to only 10,237 today to bring the total number of COVID-19 recoveries to almost 2.6 million with 2,598,052 cases.
The DOH also reported only 95 COVID-19 fatalities today compared to yesterday’s 156 count to bring the total COVID-19 deaths to 40,675.
Positivity rate today, meanwhile, dropped to 12.5 percent from 13.0 percent yesterday, from 53,669 people who were tested.
Majority, or 87.5 percent of the cases, are mild and asymptomatic.
A total of 54 duplicates were removed from the total case count, of which 35 were recoveries.
Also, 31 cases tagged earlier as recoveries were reclassified as deaths upon final validation.
All laboratories were operational on October 15, 2021 while three laboratories were not able to submit its data to the COVID-19 Document Repository System (CDRS). Based on data in the last 14 days, the three non-reporting laboratories contributed, on average, 0.5 percent of samples tested and 0.5 percent of positive individuals.
The agency continues to remind the public to ensure their safety and to strictly observe safety protocols and to have themselves vaccinated as soon as possible.
The DOH also reiterates that the safety of the country is everyone’s responsibility, and that by helping each other, the country will overcome this COVID-19 pandemic.