THE daily positivity rate on Wednesday, July 28, 2021, rose sharply to 15 percent, the highest in nearly three months, as testing output remained low.

In its case bulletin Wednesday, the Department of Health (DOH) said only 34,199 samples were tested on July 26. Four laboratories were unable to report their testing data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System.

The 15 percent positivity rate is the highest since the 16 percent recorded on May 2, 2021.

There were 4,478 new cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19), lower than the 7,186 on Tuesday as projected, as well as 84 additional deaths and 6,149 new recoveries on Wednesday.

The new cases brought the cumulative case count to 1,566,667. A total of 231 duplicates were removed from the count.

The additional deaths, which included 53 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries, raised the Covid-19 death toll to 27,401. The case fatality rate remained at 1.75 percent.

The new recoveries brought the total to 1,484,714, comprising 94.8 percent of the total case count.

There remained 54,552 active cases in hospitals and isolation facilities as of July 26, of which 1.4 percent were critical, 2.3 percent were severe, 1.64 percent were moderate, 93.4 percent were mild and 1.2 percent were asymptomatic. (Marites Villamor-Ilano / SunStar Philippines)