Fatality rate highest since April 1

MANILA— The Philippines on Friday reported 6,686 newly-confirmed COVID-19 cases and nearly 200 more deaths, just as the government allowed more establishments to open in virus hotspot Metro Manila.

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Out of the country's 1,300,349 total confirmed cases, 61,345 or 4.7 percent are still active, according to the Department of Health's (DOH) latest bulletin.

According to the ABS-CBN Investigative and Research Group, the remaining active infections is highest in more than a month or since May 8 this year, when the health department logged 61,673 active carriers of the virus.

The number of active cases has been adjusted for duplicates.

The DOH also pointed out that 1,000 cases first identified as recoveries have been reclassified as active infections.

The day's positivity rate is at 13.3 percent, based on the testing results of 49,371 individuals who got screened for COVID-19 on Wednesday.

There were 196 new fatalities due to the respiratory disease, raising the country's death toll to 22,507.

The fatality rate is at 1.73 percent. ABS-CBN Data Analytics head Edson Guido said it is the highest since April 1 this year.

The DOH said most or 127 of the fresh deaths were previously tagged as recovered.

The Philippines' surpassed 22,000 deaths on Tuesday, exactly a week after it breached the 21,000-mark.

The DOH announced 3,190 new recoveries, the lowest in a week, pushing total recuperations to 1,216,497 or 93.6 percent of the country's running tally.

A total 24 duplicates have been removed from the overall total, of which 20 are recoveries and 1 is a fatality.

Three laboratories failed to submit data on time.

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