MANILA (UPDATE) — The Philippines on Wednesday logged 7,342 more COVID-19 cases, with new fatalities counting nearly 100, data from the Department of Health (DOH) showed.

The country's total recorded infections stood at 1,619,824, of which 63,171 or 3.9 percent are active, according to the latest bulletin.

The ABS-CBN Investigative and Research Group (IRG) said this is the 6th straight day that active cases were more than 60,000.

Before this, the last time the country's caseload topped 60,000 was a month a half ago or last June 18, when those still recovering from the virus were 61,566, the research unit said.

The number of active cases has been adjusted for duplicates.

The positivity rate is at 16.4 percent, based on the test results of 41,257 individuals who got screened for the virus on Monday. This is the second straight day it was over 16 percent, data showed.

ABS-CBN Data Analytics head Edson Guido said new cases are relatively fewer every Tuesdays and Wednesdays due to the low number of testing laboratories operating over the weekend.

Meanwhile, there were 90 more people who died due to the disease, raising the total number of COVID-related deaths in the country to 28,231.

The day's newly announced deaths include 51 cases first tagged as recoveries.

The DOH said the case fatality rate is at 1.74 percent.

Recoveries also increased by 7,285 to 1,528,422, accounting for 94.4 percent of the country's cumulative total cases.

The ABS-CBN research said that daily recuperations exceeded 6,000 for the 3rd straight day.

The intensive care unit (ICU) bed utilization rate in Metro Manila rose to 59 percent from 57 percent on Tuesday. Nationwide, the ICU occupation rate is higher at 61 percent.

The DOH said a total of 59 duplicates have been excluded from the running tally, of which 52 are recovered cases.

Twenty-three cases initially classified as recoveries, meanwhile, turned out to be active cases, the agency added.

Six laboratories failed to submit data on time, while a laboratory was not operational.

GLOBAL COVID-19 CASES, PH VACCINATION

Globally, nearly 199.6 million have been infected with the coronavirus, of which almost 4.25 million are fatalities, data from the US-based Johns Hopkins University showed.

The United States, India, Brazil, Russia, and France were among the top countries with the most COVID-19 infections, according to the health institution's running tally.

In the Philippines, authorities are racing against time to halt the growth of infections driven by the more transmissible COVID-19 Delta variant, which first emerged in India.

• Gov't readies 4 million more COVID-19 jabs for NCR as ECQ looms

The government has announced the allocation of additional 4 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Metro Manila, which will revert to the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) on Friday until Aug. 20.

To date, the government has been able to administer 21.8 million virus jabs, over 12 million of which are first doses.

A total of 9.8 million people, meanwhile, are fully vaccinated against the disease, accounting for 13.87 percent of the target nearly 71 million Filipinos by yearend.

• Philippines: COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker

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