MANILA (UPDATE)— The Philippines’ death toll due to COVID-19 surpassed the 25,000-mark on Saturday, after the health department confirmed 90 new fatalities.

• COVID-19 situation in PH still ‘fragile’ amid low-risk classification— DOH official

The country now has 25,063 total recorded deaths due to the virus, while the case fatality rate is at 1.75 percent, based on the Department of Health’s (DOH) latest bulletin.

Saturday’s newly-announced deaths included 46 cases initially tagged as recoveries.

Meanwhile, the agency also reported 5,908 more COVID-19 infections, raising the country’s cumulative total to 1,430,419.

The positivity rate is at 10.6 percent, based on testing results of 50,752 individuals who underwent testing for the virus on Thursday.

ABS-CBN Data Analytics head Edson Guido said this is the 5th straight day that the positivity rate was below 12 percent. The World Health Organization recommendation is 5 percent for at least 2 weeks.

Experts said as long as the positivity rate remained high, more testing would be needed.

Active cases reached 53,665, including 19 cases first classified as recoveries, accounting for 3.8 percent of the running tally.

Recoveries increased by 7,698 to a total of 1,351,691. The total number of recoveries comprise 94.5 percent of the cumulative cases.

A total of 7 duplicates, 5 of which were recoveries, have been excluded from the total recorded cases, according to the DOH.

Five laboratories failed to submit testing results on time.

The government is in the 5th month of its vaccination rollout, which prioritizes health workers, the elderly, economic frontliners, people with comorbidities, and the indigent population.

• Philippines: COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker

Based on the ABS-CBN Investigative and Research Group’s monitoring using government data, the government has so far administered 11.016 million jabs, of which 2,727,442 are second doses.

The research unit said the number of those fully vaccinated against the virus represent 4.70 percent of the minimum target to achieve population protection.

Globally, the novel coronavirus has already infected nearly 183.2 million people, while killing 3.965 million people, data from Johns Hopkins University showed.

• Philippines: COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker

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