THE downtrend in new coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) cases continued, with the seven-day moving average falling below 5,000 on Sunday, July 18, 2021.

In its case bulletin Sunday, the Department of Health (DOH) reported 5,411 new cases, which brought the seven-day moving average for July 12 to 18 to 4,994.

The new infections brought the cumulative case count to 1,507,755. Fifteen duplicates, including 10 recoveries and one death, were removed.

For the third consecutive day, deaths exceeded 100.

There were 117 additional mortalities on Sunday, including 82 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries.

The total Covid-19 death toll increased to 26,714. The case fatality rate remained at 1.77 percent.

There were 5,439 recoveries, raising the total to 1,433,851, or 95.1 percent of the cumulative case count.

Testing improved to 53,145 on July 16, with 10.2 percent yielding positive results. Four laboratories, however, failed to report their data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System.

Globally, more than 190 million people have become infected and over 4.08 million had died from Covid-19, according to the Johns Hopkins coronavirus tracker. (Marites Villamor-Ilano / SunStar Philippines)