MANILA — The Philippines logged 9,216 additional COVID-19 cases on Thursday, pushing the country's cumulative total to 828,366.

Active cases stood at 167,279, the highest recorded in a day since the start of the pandemic, according to ABS-CBN Data Analytics. It accounts for about a fifth of the cumulative total.

The number of newly-reported infections does not include data from 5 laboratories that failed to submit results on time. It is the 10th highest daily tally of cases reported.

The country's health department also recorded 60 additional deaths. The total fatalities of 14,119 account for 1.7 percent of the cumulative total cases.

The number of recovered patients, meanwhile, increased by 598 to 646,968.

Of those currently battling the disease, 97.6% have mild symptoms, 1.2% are asymptomatic, 0.29% have moderate symptoms, 0.5% have severe symptoms, and 0.5% are in critical condition.

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According to the health department bulletin, 63 percent of intensive care unit beds for COVID-19 patients in the country have been utilized, as well as 50 percent of the isolation beds and 51 percent of ward beds.

Forty-five percent of mechanical ventilators in the country have also been used up.

Meanwhile, a total of 14 cases, 6 tagged as recovered, were removed from the official count due to duplicate entries.

There were also 28 cases initially tagged as recovered that turned out to be deaths.

The country has been seeing a surge in COVID-19 cases due to variants and non-compliance with health protocols, especially in Metro Manila and nearby provinces, which are now already under stricter quarantine measures. For the past week the country has been reporting record-high cases and deaths. The OCTA Research Group earlier said it estimates that the total number of cases will reach 1 million by the end of the month.

A recent slump in the daily tally of cases is reportedly due to the closure of some laboratories during the Holy Week, the DOH said.

As the Philippine government struggles to curb the spread of COVID-19, it has drawn criticism for the slow rollout of vaccines. The government attributed this to the limited global supply.

Of the 2.5 million vaccines it has received, only around 1 million have been administered after a month of rollout.

There are almost 54.6 million people currently infected with COVID-19 worldwide. Since the start of the pandemic, almost 133.2 million people have contracted the disease, according to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus dashboard.

Of those, almost 2.9 million have died and almost 75.7 million have recovered.

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