PH's new COVID-19 cases further dip; active cases drop below 60k

The country recorded another low single-day tally of new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases on Monday, Feb. 21.

  People flock to Ilaya in Binondo, Manila to shop on Jan. 2, 2022. Metro Manila will be under Alert Level 3 starting Jan. 3 until Jan. 15 due to the rise of COVID-19 cases.(FILE PHOTO BY ALI VICOY / MANILA BULLETIN)

According to the bulletin released by the Department of Health (DOH), it reported 1,427 fresh COVID-19 infections. This is lower than Sunday’s data of 1,712 new cases.

Active cases are now lower than 60,000 and has dropped to 58,657 or 1.6 percent of the total number of cases.

Among the active cases, 53,326 are mild; 2,845 are moderate; 1,422 are severe; 760 are asymptomatic; while 304 are in critical condition.

DOH said that of the 1,427 reported cases, 1,389 or 97 percent occurred within the recent 14 days from Feb. 8 to Feb. 21. The top regions with cases in the recent two weeks were NCR at 318 or 23 percent; Region 4-A at 168 or 12 percent and Region 6 at 159 or 11 percent.

DOH added that all labs were operational on Feb. 19. However five labs were not able to submit their data to the COVID-19 Document Repository System (CDRS).

On the other hand, the health agency also recorded 3,269 new recoveries, bringing the total number to 3,539,106 or 96.9 percent of the total number of cases while 79 more have died from the virus bringing the death toll to 55,763 or 1.53 percent.

The government failed to vaccinate 5 million people as part of its third national vaccination program.

Health Undersecretary and National Vaccination Operations Center (NVOC) Chairperson Myrna Cabotaje said that they only vaccinated around 3.447 million, or about 68.94 percent. She said that they have learned a lot from what they experienced and that they will change their strategies as well as strengthen the government’s advocacy.

She added that they need to advocate more the importance of getting boosters to people. They also aim to put up vaccination centers nearer to areas where many people can get inoculated.