THE Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday, January 21, 2021, reported around 1,800 new coronavirus infections for the second day in a row.
The DOH case bulletin issued at 4 p.m. Thursday showed 1,783 new cases, bringing the total case count to 507,717.
Active cases increased to 30,126 or 5.9 percent of the total.
Among the new cases were 99 from Quezon City, 83 from Rizal, 78 from Manila, 69 from Bulacan and 66 from Cavite.
The new cases were slightly lower than the 1,862 cases confirmed on Wednesday, January 20.
There were 74 additional deaths, pushing the case fatality rate upward again to 1.99 percent. The death toll from coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) stood at 10,116 as of January 21.
The DOH also reported 500 new recoveries, increasing the total to 467,475 or 92.1 percent of the total case count.
A total of 22,947 tests were conducted in 24 hours until 12 noon of January 20, of which 1,366 or 6.0 percent yielded positive results.
Meanwhile, the DOH said in a press statement that it expects delivery of vaccines against Covid-19 through the Covax initiative within the first quarter of 2021.
The agency said it received confirmation on January 20 that the Philippines is now a participant in Covax, a global pooled procurement mechanism that ensures fair and equitable distribution of candidate vaccines against Covid-19.
Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez Jr. earlier said the Philippines will get an undetermined volume of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine through Covax.
The Philippines has been listed among the 92 low- to middle-income countries that may avail of vaccines at subsidized prices through Covax. (Marites Villamor-Ilano / SunStar Philippines)