MANILA (UPDATE) — The Philippines on Saturday logged 2,109 new COVID-19 cases, a year after the country recorded its first case of the novel coronavirus, with the number of active infections the highest in three months.

This brings the total number of infections to 523,516, but the day’s cases do not include data from 6 laboratories that failed to submit results to the COVID-19 Data Repository System on Friday, according to the Department of Health (DOH).

Active infections reached 36,943. This is the highest number of active cases since Oct. 31 last year, according to ABS-CBN News Data Analytics Head Edson Guido.

The DOH also recorded 71 more coronavirus-related fatalities, pushing the total number of those who died from the disease to 10,669.

The deaths account for 2.04 percent of the country’s total infections, but Guido noted that this is the highest case fatality rate since Aug. 1 last year or in nearly 6 months.

Some 94.9 percent of the patients with COVID-19 are currently exhibiting mild symptoms or asymptomatic from the virus. Some 2.6 percent meanwhile, are critically ill.

A total of 146 more Filipinos recovered from the disease, the DOH said. This brings overall recoveries to 475,904. The number of newly-reported recoveries, meanwhile, marks the 6th straight day of less than 200 daily recoveries.

Of the 26,977 Filipinos who underwent testing, 1,357 or 5 percent tested positive for the disease, said the DOH.

Six "duplicates" have been removed from the total case count. Two recoveries and 2 deaths were also removed.

Five cases initially tagged as recovered meanwhile, were reclassified as deaths upon the agency's final validation.

Still missing in the DOH bulletin are the areas with the most number of newly-recorded cases.

Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said on Friday that the agency is currently reviewing the daily case bulletin to improve the format "more understandable to the general public."

Vergeire said the list of areas with the most number of new cases based on the daily report “is sometimes misinterpreted as total new or active cases.”

• READ: PH logs 1,849 more COVID-19 cases; total infections at 521,413

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OCTA report concerned on rising new infections in Cebu City

The OCTA Research group earlier in the day said that Cebu City has been seeing an upward trend in new cases since the holidays, warning that new cases could be seen in the coming weeks if the outbreak is not controlled.

• DOH: Cebu under MGCQ despite COVID-19 rise as health care utilization at 'low risk'

In its report, the independent research group said the increasing reproduction rate (R) in Cebu City is currently at 1.62, based on their daily moving average.

The R value measures the average number of people that one infected person passes the disease to. An R value above 1 can lead to exponential growth.

They also warned on the increasing positivity rate in the city, which rose to 6 percent based on an average of 2,400 daily COVID-19 tests. Cebu City, researchers pointed out, has been logging an average of 78 fresh infections daily for the past week alone.

"The rapid increase in new COVID-19 cases, if not curbed, could lead to more than 150 new... cases per day in Cebu City in next two weeks," OCTA warned.

The research group earlier said they were concerned of the possibility that the more transmissible UK variant of COVID-19 is spreading in parts of Cebu.

But Dr. Mary Jean Loreche, spokesperson and chief pathologist of Department of Health - Central Visayas, said there was no reason for concern yet, citing the city's health care capacity.

• READ: 'Sobrang safe po tayo': DOH allays concerns over surge of COVID-19 cases in Cebu
• READ: Increase in COVID-19 cases in Cebu ‘a serious concern,’ says OCTA Group

Over 102 million people globally have contracted COVID-19, according to a running tally by the US-based Johns Hopkins University, with the US, India, Brazil, Russia, and United Kingdom having the highest total cases as of this posting.

Since the pandemic began, 2.2 million people have died while 56.5 million have recovered from the disease, the JHU tally showed.