MANILA (UPDATED) — The Philippines recorded 1,298 COVID-19 cases in the past week, the Department of Health said Monday.

From March 20 to 26, an average of 185 daily infections were logged in the country, which is 11 percent higher compared to the previous week.

This is the highest number of weekly cases in 9 weeks, or since the week of January 16 to 22, when the DOH logged 1,890 cases, based on data from the ABS-CBN Investigative and Research Group.

Of the new infections during the week, 10 cases were considered severe or critical, according to the DOH's latest bulletin.

As of Sunday, 307 cases or 8.4 percent of total COVID-19 admissions were in severe and critical condition, the agency said.

At least 285 or 14 percent of intensive care unit beds for COVID patients were occupied. The non-ICU bed utilization rate was at 16.5 percent.

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During the past week, the DOH also verified 60 more COVID-related fatalities, citing late encoding of death information.

This is 5 percent lower or fewer by 3 deaths compared to the 63 deaths logged last week, ABS-CBN IRG also said.

The deaths occurred in the following months:

• 1 occurred in November 2022
• 1 in October 2022
• 1 in March 2022
• 5 in February 2022
• 8 in January 2022
• 1 in December 2021
• 2 in November 2021
• 10 in October 2021
• 3 in September 2021
• 11 in August 2021
• 2 in July 2021
• 2 in June 2021
• 2 in May 2021
• 3 in April 2021
• 3 in March 2021
• 1 in February 2021
• 1 in November 2020
• 1 in October 2020
• 1 in August 2020
• 1 in June 2020

Based on the DOH's COVID-19 Tracker, the Philippines has 8,611 active COVID-19 cases as of March 26.

Since the pandemic broke out in 2020, the country has logged 4,080,199 coronavirus infections. The death toll stood at 66,332.

According to the National COVID-19 Vaccination Dashboard, more than 79.1 million Filipinos are fully vaccinated against the virus.

The tally showed 24.1 million people had received their first boosters while 4.5 million had gotten their second boosters.

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