THE Philippines' positivity rate dropped to 37.2 percent on Tuesday, January 25, from Monday’s 40.6 percent, with the Department of Health (DOH) reporting only 17,677 new cases of coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

This is the first time for the country to record below 20,000 daily Covid-19 cases since January 6, when the DOH tallied 17,220 new infections.

The DOH said earlier that it is seeing a downtrend particularly in Metro Manila, although it is monitoring areas outside the National Capital Region where Covid-19 cases are increasing.

In its 4 p.m. Tuesday bulletin, the health department said the 17,677 new cases reported brought the country's total case count to 3,459,646, with 247,451 active infections (7.2 percent).

It said 43,874 samples were tested last January 23, of which 37.2 percent turned out positive for the virus.

Of the active cases, 7,464 were asymptomatic, 235,181 were mild, 2,996 were moderate, 1,502 were severe and 308 were in critical condition.

The DOH also logged 33,144 new recoveries, raising the total number of people who have managed to recover from the disease to 3,158,597 or 91.3 percent.

The death toll rose to 53,598 with 79 new mortalities reported Tuesday. This accounts for 1.55 percent of all confirmed cases nationwide.

The country's ICU utilization rate remained at 50 percent, while 53 percent of isolation beds and ward beds have been utilized.

In Metro Manila, 44 percent of ICU beds were occupied, 45 percent for isolation beds and 51 percent for ward beds.

The DOH said the figures Tuesday, January 25, did not include reports from six laboratories that failed to submit their data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System last January 23. These laboratories contributed on average 0.6 percent of samples tested and 0.8 percent of positive results in the last 14 days.

The DOH said earlier that the Philippines' risk classification has been downgraded to "high risk" from "critical risk" following a decrease in Covid-19 cases, particularly in Metro Manila. (LMY)