THE Philippines recorded below 20,000 new cases of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) for the fifth day in a row.

In its Thursday (September 23) bulletin, the health department said 17,411 additional infections were logged in the past 24 hours, along with 14,090 new recoveries and 177 new deaths.

The country’s total number of confirmed cases now stood at 2,434,753, of which 165,790 are active (6.8 percent), 2,231,558 have recovered (91.7 percent), and 37,405 have succumbed to Covid-19 (1.54 percent).

The DOH said 92.1 percent of the active cases have mild symptoms of Covid-19, while 3.1 percent were asymptomatic.

About 2.73 percent of the patients were considered moderate cases, 1.5 percent were on several condition, and 0.7 percent were critical.

All the Covid-19 laboratories in the Philippines were operational on September 21, but three laboratories failed to submit data to the repository system.

Data from the last 14 days showed that these three laboratories have contributed more or less 0.3 percent of all the samples tested and also 0.3 percent of all the individuals who tested positive, added the DOH.

The health department appealed to the public anew to continue to observe the minimum health standards to prevent the spread of coronavirus. (LMY)