MORE than two out of seven swab tests for the novel coronavirus conducted nationwide yielded positive results, pushing the case count higher to a new peak on Thursday, September 9, 2021.
In its case bulletin, the Department of Health (DOH) reported a new record high of 22,820 new cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
The daily positivity rate climbed higher to 29.4 percent out of the 74,706 samples tested on September 7. Five laboratories were unable to report their testing data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System.
The case bulletin was issued at past 8 p.m., a delay of more than four hours because the technical issues hounding the CovidKaya epidemiological surveillance system were resolved only at past 6 p.m. Thursday.
The new cases brought the cumulative Covid-19 case count to 2,161,892. There were 108 duplicates, including 96 cases listed among the recoveries, that were removed from the tally.
The DOH also reported 61 additional mortalities and 12,337 new recoveries.
The additional deaths, which included 29 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries, raised the death toll to 34,733. But the case fatality rate retreated further to 1.61 percent.
Including the 12,337 new recoveries, a total of 1,960,487 have now overcome the infection.
Since the new cases were much higher than the recoveries, the number of active cases soared to 166,672, of which 0.7 percent were critical, 1.4 percent were severe, and 2.65 percent were moderate.
The proportion of mild cases dropped to 87 percent while the asymptomatic cases increased to 8.3 percent. (Marites Villamor-Ilano / SunStar Philippines)