NEW cases of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in the country dropped to less than 7,000 in a day for the first time in nearly three months on Sunday, October 17, 2021.

In its case bulletin, the Department of Health (DOH) reported 6,913 new infections, the lowest since the 5,735 on July 29, 2021, after four consecutive days of less than 8,000 daily infections.

The positivity rate also dropped to 12.5 percent, the lowest in nearly three months.

Three laboratories were unable to submit their testing output to the Covid-19 Document Repository System. Only 53,669 samples were tested for Sars-CoV-2 on October 15.

The new cases brought the cumulative Covid-19 case count in the Philippines to 2,720,368.

Of this number, 40,675 had died from Covid-19, including the 95 additional mortalities reported on Sunday. The additional deaths included 31 cases that were initially tagged as recoveries.

The case fatality rate remained at 1.5 percent.

Of the total cases, 95.5 percent or 2,598,052 have recovered from infection, including the 10,237 reported on Sunday.

There remained 81,641 active cases nationwide, of which 1.6 percent were critical, 3.8 percent were severe, 7.13 percent were moderate, 82 percent were mild and 5.5 percent were asymptomatic. (MVI with HDT / SunStar Philippines)