THE Department of Health (DOH) reported Tuesday, October 19, the lowest number of Covid-19 cases logged in a day in nearly three months with only 4,496 additional infections due to lower laboratory output.

This brought the country’s total caseload to 2,731,735 as of Tuesday.

"The relatively low cases today is due to lower laboratory output last Sunday, October 17," the DOH said.

It was on July 28 when the Philippines recorded its lowest daily tally, with 4,478 fresh infections logged on that day.

The active cases also went down by 5,195 on Tuesday, October 19, with only 63,637 active infections logged as compared to Monday’s (October 18) 68,832. This is 2.3 percent of the more than two million cases in the Philippines since the start of the pandemic last year.

Of the active cases, 79 percent have mild symptoms, 5.2 percent were asymptomatic, 8.87 percent were moderate, 4.8 percent were severe, and two percent were in critical condition.

The decrease in active cases was also the result of the 9,609 new recoveries reported by DOH on Tuesday that brought the total number of individuals who have recovered from the disease to 2,627,126 (96.2 percent).

The DOH, however, logged 211 new deaths, bringing the death toll from coronavirus disease (Covid-19) to 40,972 deaths (1.50 percent).

The health department said seven laboratories were not able to submit data last Sunday, October 17. All laboratories, however, were operational on that day.

Based on the data in the last 14 days, the seven laboratories that were unable to submit reports contributed more or less 2.8 percent of the samples tested and two percent of the number of individuals who tested positive for the virus.

The DOH reminded the public anew to continue to observe the minimum health standards despite the lowering of alert level particularly in Metro Manila to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

The government on Tuesday expanded outside Metro Manila the alert level system as part of its pilot implementation. (Laureen Mondoñedo-Ynot)