MANILA (UPDATE) - The Philippines on Tuesday confirmed 6,879 additional COVID-19 cases, just as hospitals in some provinces announce critical capacity due to virus admissions.

• READ: Mga ospital sa CDO, malapit na sa full capacity dahil sa COVID-19

The country now has 1,612,541 total recorded COVID-19 infections, of which 3.9 percent or 63,137 are active, the Department of Health (DOH) said in its latest bulletin.

This is the first time in 5 days that cases counted fewer than 8,000, data showed. The DOH attributed Tuesday's relatively fewer cases due to the lower number of samples received on Sunday for testing.

The ABS-CBN Investigative and Research Group noted that this is the 5th straight day that active cases topped 60,000.

The last time this happened was on June 18, when there were 61,569 active carriers of the virus, as per DOH data, the IRG added.

The day's positivity rate is at 17.5 percent, based on the result of tests conducted on 37,302 samples on Sunday. The ABS-CBN Data Analytics team said the rate is the highest in more than 3 months or since April 26.

Fatalities, meanwhile, climbed by 48 to 28,141. The case fatality rate is at 1.75 percent.

The day's newly announced deaths include 18 cases first tagged as recovered, according to the health department.

There were also 6,337 additional recoveries, pushing the total to 1,521,263.

The total number of recoveries accounts for 94.3 percent of the country's running tally.

The intensive care unit (ICU) utilization rate in Metro Manila rose to 57 percent from 55 percent on Monday, the bulletin showed.

Nationwide, ICU occupancy rate is at 62 percent, up by 2 percent from the previous day.

A total of 100 duplicates, of which 98 are recoveries, have been excluded from the cumulative total.

Twelve recovered cases turned out to be active infections, the DOH added.

Nine laboratories failed to submit data on time, while a laboratory was not operational on Sunday, according to the DOH.

Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire earlier said there is a rise in COVID-19 cases in "all" areas in the Philippines, which was why a higher lockdown level should be imposed.

• 'All areas showing increase in cases': DOH seeks higher community quarantine vs Delta variant

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