MANILA (UPDATE) — The Philippines reported on Tuesday a record-high 382 additional deaths due to COVID-19, as the country's cumulative total of coronavirus infections soared to 812,760.

“A technical issue with the case collection systems resulted in lower reporting of COVID-19 death counts over the past week... The number of deaths reported today (382) already includes the (341) deaths not reported in previous counts,” the Department of Health (DOH) said in its bulletin for the day.

There were also 166 cases tagged as recovered that turned out to be deaths after final validation, the DOH said.

The death toll, as of Tuesday, stood at 13,817, or 1.7 percent of the country's cumulative total COVID-19 cases.

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The DOH reported 9,373 additional coronavirus infections, which do not include data from 10 laboratories that failed to submit their results on time.

According to the ABS-CBN Investigative and Research Group, this is the 8th highest number of cases recorded in a single day since the pandemic started.

Total recoveries, meanwhile, went up by 313 to 646,381.

The country's active cases numbered 152,562, which is the third highest recorded in a day, and represents 18.8 percent of the cumulative total.

Of those, 97.5% have mild symptoms, 1.1% are asymptomatic, 0.31% have moderate symptoms, 0.5% have severe symptoms, and 0.5% in critical condition.

There were 11 cases, 3 tagged as recoveries, that were removed from the official tally due to duplicate entries.

According to the DOH bulletin, of the latest group of 27,055 people tested for the disease, 19.9% were found positive.

Meanwhile, hospital utilization in the National Capital Region is higher than the national figures, available data show.

While intensive care unit (ICU) beds dedicated to COVID-19 patients were 63% occupied for the whole country, it was 82% occupied for NCR. COVID-19 isolation beds in NCR are 71% utilized.

In a separate statement explaining the technical issue on the collation of COVID-19 data that resulted in incomplete death tallies, the DOH said 341 deaths prior to this month were not immediately reported.

“Despite the additional cases, the cumulative case fatality rate for the Philippines remains low at 1.7%,” the agency said.

It said there has been no spike in deaths anywhere in the country.

The DOH assured the public it is continuously monitoring its information system to ensure correct data. It also called on health facilities to send timely information.

Since last month, the country has been experiencing a continuous surge in cases due to the presence of COVID-19 variants, the public's non-compliance with health protocols, and increased mobility after the economy was gradually reopened.

This, amid the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which some sectors criticize though to be slow as only around 800,000 individuals so far have been inoculated a little over a month since it started. The government aims to vaccinate up to 70 million by the end of the year to achieve herd immunity against the coronavirus.

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There are 54 million people currently infected with COVID-19 worldwide. Since the start of the pandemic, 131.8 million people have contracted the disease, according to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus dashboard. Of those, almost 2.9 million have died and almost 74.9 million have recovered.

The Philippines logged its first COVID-19 case on Jan. 30 last year in a Chinese woman who arrived from Wuhan City, China where the disease is believed to have first emerged in late 2019.

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