MANILA (UPDATE) - The Philippines on Tuesday confirmed 7,186 new COVID-19 infections, the highest reported in more than a month due to delays in data aggregation.

Of the country's 1,562,420 total recorded infections, 56,477 or 3.6 percent are active, the Department of Health (DOH) stated in its latest bulletin.

The ABS-CBN data and research teams said the number of additional cases is the highest since June 13.

• OCTA: NCR seeing 'early stages' of COVID-19 surge that may be driven by Delta variant

The positivity rate is at 13.2 percent, based from the results of 30,016 individuals who got screened for the disease on Sunday.

ABS-CBN Data Analytics head Edson Guido said that the positivity rate is over 13 percent for the 3rd straight day.

Thirteen laboratories failed to submit data on time.

HIGH CASES AS DATA 'EXTRACTED' LATE

The DOH said the day's relatively high number of new cases is due to the "later extraction" of data on Monday.

The DOH usually collates data for the case bulletin at 1 p.m., it said, with files only coming in at their data collating system at 6 p.m., thus a later time of "extraction."

"We had to do a 9 p.m. extraction, rather than a 1 p.m. extraction," the agency said.

"[COVID-19 Document Repository System] records were not yet completely pushed to [COVIDKaya] at that time. The push was completed after 6 p.m. This resulted to higher numbers today and potentially lower figures by tomorrow."

This comes as the health department encountered technical issues in its data repository system last week.

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

The problem was resolved only on Saturday, 3 days after the system issue arose.

ACTIVE CASES ALSO HIGHEST IN OVER A MONTH

The number of those still battling the disease, meanwhile, is also the highest in more than a month, or since June 18 when the DOH registered 58,649 active infections, the ABS-CBN Investigative and Research Group said.

The number of active cases in previous days has been adjusted for duplicates, the research unit added.

Meanwhile, COVID-related fatalities rose to 27,318 after 72 more deaths were reported. The case fatality rate is at 1.75 percent.

The day's fresh fatalities included 49 cases first tagged as recoveries, according to the DOH.

There were also 5,672 additional recoveries, pushing the country's total recuperations to 1,478,625, accounting for 94.6 percent of the running tally.

A total of 162 duplicates had been excluded from the total number of cases, of which 7 are recoveries and one is a fatality.

CIRCUIT-BREAKER LOCKDOWN

The OCTA Research group said infections are rising rapidly in Metro Manila, supposedly driven by the more contagious COVID-19 Delta variant, which is why a "circuit-breaker" lockdown would be needed.

The "circuit-breaker" is designed to lower the capacity of business establishments, as well as adding more restrictions for a period of time, to control the infections.

• OCTA calls for 'circuit-breaking' lockdown to slow Delta COVID-19 spread

This also allows contact tracers to get on top of cases.

OCTA Fellow Prof. Guido David earlier in the day said the COVID-19 reproduction rate, or the number of people that a patient with the respiratory disease is likely to infect, has gone up to 1.33 in the National Capital Region.

The region is also tallying about 1,000 coronavirus cases a day, he added.

"An urgent and decisive response from the national government is now needed to reverse the growing trend in cases," the research unit said in a statement sent to reporters.

"In this regard, OCTA is suggesting that the IATF considers a "go early go hard" strategy to crush a possible catastrophic delta surge before it happens."

• DOH confirms local transmission of COVID-19 Delta variant

The DOH said there is already local transmission of the Delta variant in the Philippines.

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