New Covid-19 cases stay below 2K for 7th straight day

MANILA – The Department of Health (DOH) recorded another 1,671 fresh cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) on Friday.

Friday’s cases are slightly lower than 1,745 new cases reported on Thursday based on the latest Covid-19 tracker of the DOH.

This is the seventh consecutive day of new cases below 2,000, with the country logging its lowest daily cases for this year at 1,019 on February 22.

The DOH also reported 1,586 new recoveries from Covid-19, lower than Thursday’s 2,045 new recoveries, bringing the country’s total to 3,547,528 or 97 percent of 3,658,892 total confirmed cases.

The number of active cases has reached 55,140 or 1.5 percent of all confirmed cases.

Of the active cases, about 91.8 percent have shown mild symptoms or asymptomatic.

More specifically, there are 49,988 cases with mild symptoms, those with moderate symptoms at 2,784, those with severe symptoms at 1,424, the asymptomatic at 645, and those in critical condition at 299.

It reported 59 new deaths, bringing the country’s total to 56,224 or 1.54 percent of all confirmed cases.

Based on the latest testing data, there were 28,039 Covid-19 tests administered on Wednesday with a positivity rate of 5.6 percent.

The country’s health care utilization rate is currently low, with about 3,800 beds at intensive care units (ICU) at 28 percent occupancy, 20,400 isolation beds at 24 percent occupancy, 14,300 ward beds at 17 percent occupancy, and 15 percent of 3,100 ventilators are in use.

In the National Capital Region alone, there are 1,300 ICU beds at 27 percent occupancy, 4,600 isolation beds at 23 percent occupancy, 4,000 ward beds at 25 percent occupancy, and 17 percent of 1,000 ventilators are in use.