NEW coronavirus infections declined to less than 9,000 on Monday, August 9, 2021, but the number of active cases were the highest in three-and-a-half months and the daily positivity rate climbed further to 21.3 percent.
There were six additional deaths, the lowest since July 23, when the Department of Health (DOH) reported zero deaths for the day.
In its case bulletin Monday, the DOH reported 8,900 new cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19), six deaths and 7,937 recoveries.
Tests conducted on August 7 were lower at 50,096, with a positivity rate of 21.3 percent. All laboratories submitted their testing data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System.
The new cases brought the cumulative case count to 1,667,714, after the removal of 102 duplicates.
Of the total, 78,480 remained active cases, the highest since the 89,485 on April 24, 2021. These included seven cases that were previously tagged as recoveries.
The additional mortalities raised the Covid-19 death toll to 29,128. The case fatality rate swung back to 1.75 percent.
With the new recoveries, the total number of Covid-19 patients who have recovered in the country increased to 1,560,106.
DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said there is a high probability that the case count will continue to increase even after the two-week lockdown in Metro Manila, which accounts for the highest number of cases in the last two weeks.
“The cases that are being reported now are still from the past 14 days. We have yet to see cases for the recent days,” Vergeire said, as she pointed out that Covid-19 has an incubation period of 14 days.
She said the primary objective for the imposition of an enhanced community quarantine in Metro Manila until August 20 and more stringent restrictions in several other areas is to reduce the number of hospital admissions and deaths. (Marites Villamor-Ilano / SunStar Philippines)