NEW coronavirus infections declined to less than 7,000 for the first time in five days, but the number of active cases climbed to 86,200, surpassing the 2020 record in the Philippines.
The Department of Health (DOH) reported 5,867 new cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) on Tuesday, March 23, 2021, fewer than the 7,103 to 8,019 daily cases in the past four days from March 19 to 22.
The number of active cases, however, surpassed the 83,109 recorded on August 15, 2020, the highest last year. These constitute 12.7 percent of the 677,653 cumulative case count.
The healthcare situation in the National Capital Region (NCR), epicenter of the outbreak, has further worsened, with seven more health facilities entering critical level of more than 85 percent occupancy and at least four private hospitals declaring full capacity for Covid-19 patients.
As of March 21, 37 facilities were considered critical, 19 were high risk, 15 at moderate risk and 80 were still in the safe zone.
The daily positivity rate increased further to 15.4 percent of the 33,719 samples tested as of noon of March 22.
The DOH case bulletin also showed 20 additional mortalities, which raised the Covid-19 death toll to 12,992. The case fatality rate, given the low number of deaths and steep increase in cases, decreased further to 1.92 percent.
There were 620 new recoveries, bringing the total to 578,461. The proportion of recoveries decreased to 85.4 percent of the total.
The highest 14-day running total of new cases as of March 22 were in Quezon City (7,159), Manila (5,488), Cavite (3,534), Bulacan (3,420) and Pasay City (3,071).
Among the regions, the NCR had the highest 14-day running total of 35,349, followed by Calabarzon with 9,975, Central Luzon with 5,656, Central Visayas with 5,023 and Cagayan Valley with 2,063. (Marites Villamor-Ilano / SunStar Philippines)