THE Department of Health (DOH) reported Tuesday, November 9, just 46 new deaths due to coronavirus disease (Covid-19), while the country’s total caseload climbed to 2,806,694 with 1,409 fresh infections logged in the past 24 hours.

The health department said the lower number of deaths reported Tuesday was due to technical issues encountered with the CovidKaya, its DOH’s epidemiological surveillance information system.

The death toll stood at 44,567 or 1.59 percent of confirmed cases in the Philippines.

The 1,409 new Covid-19 cases, on the other hand, were the lowest in almost nine months, or since February 17 when 1,176 additional cases were logged.

The active cases went down to 30,544 from Monday’s (November 8) 32,077. This means that 1.1 percent are still active infections.

The number of persons who have recovered from Covid-19 further climbed to 2,731,583 with 2,941 new recoveries reported Tuesday. This accounts for 97.3 percent of all cases.

The DOH said majority or 60.7 percent of the cases have been considered mild, eight percent were asymptomatic, 17.05 percent were moderate, 10 percent were severe, and 4.2 percent were critical.

The country’s positivity rate was at 5.4 percent.

Tuesday’s figures, however, did not include data from 14 laboratories in the country that failed to submit reports to the Covid-19 Document Repository System on November 7, 2021.

The DOH said these laboratories contributed an average of 1.6 percent of the samples tested and two percent of individuals who tested positive for coronavirus in the past 14 days.

The health department appealed to the public anew not to be complacent but to still observe the minimum health standards to further bring the Covid-19 cases down.

“In the upcoming Christmas season, we expect people to go out more; hence an increase in mobility is expected. It is very important that while our mobility increases, we should continue to strictly adhere to our minimum public health standards,” said DOH spokesperson and Undersecretary Maria Rosario Singh-Vergeire in a statement Monday, November 8. (SunStar Philippines)