TWO days after reporting one of the lowest number of deaths in a day, the Department of Health (DOH) on Wednesday, July 7, 2021, recorded the second highest daily death toll in almost a month after reclassifying over 100 recoveries that were validated as deaths from coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).

In its case bulletin Wednesday, the DOH reported 164 additional mortalities, including 123 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries but were found to have died.

The 164 mortalities were the second highest in a day, after the 177 deaths reported on July 2, since the 196 recorded on June 11, 2021.

The DOH also reported 4,289 new infections and 6,399 new recoveries.

The new infections brought the total case count to 1,450,110. Eleven duplicates, including six recoveries and one death, were removed from the count.

Four laboratories failed to submit their testing data on July 5 to the Covid-19 Document Repository System. Testing output remained low at 35,460, with a positivity rate of 11.3 percent.

The number of active cases declined to 47,519 as recoveries exceeded new infections. This, despite the reclassification of 61 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries but were found to be active cases.

Meanwhile, the additional mortalities raised the Covid-19 death toll in the Philippines to 25,459. The case fatality rate increased to 1.76 percent, after a week of remaining at 1.75 percent.

A total of 1,377,132 patients have recovered from infection, constituting 95 percent of the cumulative cases. (Marites Villamor-Ilano / SunStar Philippines)