MANILA (UPDATE)—The Philippines on Saturday posted 6,216 additional COVID-19 cases, with fatalities reaching more than 200 for the first time in nearly 2 months.

The recently counted facilities are “backlogs” on the health department’s data collating system, its latest bulletin showed.

• READ: DOH: Data system ‘issue’ fixed amid report of no new deaths on Friday

This is also the second day that new cases were more than 6,000.

According to the Department of Health (DOH), the country now has a total of 1,543,281 COVID-19 infections, of which 54,401 are still active.

The DOH also pointed out that data collating system COVIDKaya has been fixed, which led to the 241 reported deaths on Saturday. It has reported a low number of deaths for the past 3 days, with no new fatalities reported on Friday.

The newly-reported fatalities included 139 cases initially tagged as recoveries, according to the agency.

• READ: PH adds 6,845 more COVID-19 cases, no new deaths as data system encounters ‘issue’

Fatalities due to the respiratory disease in the country stood at 27,131, while the case fatality rate is at 1.76 percent.

“The unusually high number of deaths reported today can be attributed to a backlog of cases being updated after the resolution of the system error,” a department note read.

The DOH’s data system experienced technical issues for the past 3 days. Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire earlier in the day said reporting units had trouble submitting inputs to COVIDKaya due to a low number of available central storage base.

Meanwhile, the positivity rate is at 13 percent, based on the samples of 45,592 individuals screened for the virus on Thursday.

ABS-CBN Data Analytics head Edson Guido said the positivity rate is the highest since June 14.

Recoveries, meanwhile, rose to 1,461,749 after the DOH reported 6,778 new recuperations.

A total of 31 duplicates have been excluded from the running tally, of which 26 are recoveries and 1 is a fatality.

Two laboratories failed to submit data on time.

The DOH earlier in the day reported 17 new Delta variant cases, most or 12 of which are considered local infections. The country now has 64 total cases of the strain.

• READ: PH detects 17 more Delta variant cases; total now at 64

There is already a local transmission of the said variant in the country, prompting Philippine authorities to place the capital region and nearby provinces to a stricter general community quarantine level.

• READ: Metro Manila, 4 provinces under 'GCQ with heightened restrictions' to curb COVID-19 Delta's spread

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