WITH 10 laboratories failing to report their testing output on July 18, 2021, the Department of Health (DOH) reported less than 5,000 new cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) on Tuesday, July 20, 2021.
In its case bulletin, the DOH reported 4,516 new cases, 58 additional mortalities and 5,240 new recoveries.
The figures are normally low on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, when the testing data collated over the weekend are reported by the DOH.
The new infections brought the cumulative case count to 1,517,903. Nine duplicates, which included six recoveries, were removed from the tally.
Testing output dropped to 34,562 on July 18, with a positivity rate of 10.9 percent. Ten laboratories, which accounted for 2.9 percent of the positive results in the last 14 days, failed to submit their data.
The additional deaths, which included 30 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries, raised the death toll from Covid-19 to 26,844. The case fatality rate remained at 1.77 percent.
A totall of 1,444,253 individuals have now been classified as recoveries, including the 5,240 newly recovered patients. They consist 95.1 percent of the total case count.
With recoveries exceeding the daily cases, the number of active cases went down to 46,806 as of July 18, of which 91.7 percent were mild, 1.6 percent were critical, 2.7 percent were severe, 1.9 percent were moderate and 2.1 percent were asymptomatic.
DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, in a press conference earlier Tuesday, said the areas that are considered as high or critical risk in terms of healthcare and/or intensive care unit (ICU) utilization are Davao Region, Western Visayas, Cordillera Administrative Region, Zamboanga Peninsula and Soccsksargen.
She said the National Capital Region (NCR) remained at low risk, but she said there should be no room for complacency especially since cases in some cities were starting to increase.
She also said hospital admissions were again increasing in some cities in the NCR.
“So again, even though the classification is at low risk because of the general HCUR (healthcare utilization rate) across all cities, pag tinignan natin sa bawat city, meron na po tayong nao-observe na konting pagtaas ng number of cases and...konting pagdami in hospitalizations because of Covid-related symptoms,” Vergeire added. (Marites Villamor-Ilano / SunStar Philippines)