MANILA (UPDATE) — The Philippines recorded 17,145 new COVID-19 cases in the past week, the Department of Health (DOH) said Monday.

From Aug. 29 to Sept. 4, the country's average daily infections were at 2,449, which is 10 percent lower compared to the previous week, according to the health department's latest bulletin.

Coronavirus infections in Mindanao are showing signs of plateauing, the agency said. The Visayas is on a plateau, while rest of the areas in the country are on a slow downward trend, it added.

According to the ABS-CBN Investigative and Research Group, last week's number is the lowest in 7 weeks, or since the week of July 11-17 when the DOH logged 14,622 cases, based on the DOH COVID-19 data drop.

It was also the second straight week with cases below 20,000.

Of the newly recorded infections, 40 were severe and critical.

A total of 768 or 10.1 percent of COVID-19 patients in hospitals were in severe and critical condition as of Sunday, the DOH said.

According to the ABS-CBN IRG, it is the second straight week that severe and critical cases accounted for more than 10 percent of total COVID-19 admissions.

Up to 595 or 23.5 percent of 2,529 intensive care unit beds for COVID-19 patients were occupied.

This is the 7th straight week with ICU bed utilization rate above 20 percent, with the ICU bed utilization rate ranging from 21.7 percent to 28 percent in the weeks of July 18 to August 28, according to the ABS-CBN IRG.

The DOH said the number of severe and critical cases shows a slow decline.

• Philippines reports 656 new cases of omicron subvariants

During the past week, the DOH also said it verified 354 more COVID-related fatalities. Citing late encoding of death information, it provided the following breakdown:

• -1 in September 2022
• -145 in August 2022
• -8 in July 2022
• -10 in June 2022
• -6 in May 2022
• -3 in April 2022
• -5 in March 2022
• -25 in February 2022
• -115 in January 2022
• -22 in December 2021
• -8 in November 2021
• -4 in October 2021
• -1 in September 2021
• -1 in July 2021

Last week's death toll is the highest logged in 21 weeks or since the week of April 2-10, when DOH reported 428. It is also the fourth straight week that fatalities confirmed in a week were above 200, ABS-CBN IRG said.

2,203 NEW CASES, 51 MORE DEATHS ON MONDAY

Later in the day, the DOH reported a daily addition of 2,202 infections, bringing the country's total to 3,893,573.

This is the fourth straight day that daily new cases are below 3,000, ABS-CBN Data Analytics Team head Edson Guido said.

Fifty-one new deaths were also recorded, bringing the death toll to 62,062.

Of the day's new cases, 720 are from Metro Manila.

Active infections stood at 24,493, while 3,807,018 have already recovered.

As of Sept. 4, more than 72.6 million people have been fully vaccinated against the respiratory disease.

Of the figure, almost 18.2 million have received their first booster dose while more than 2.3 million have gotten their second booster shots.

• DOH: Sitwasyon sa COVID-19, gumaganda na

RELATED VIDEO

Watch more News on iWantTFC