MANILA (UPDATE) - The number of COVID-19 cases in the country increased to 257,863 after tallying 4,935 new confirmed cases of the highly-contagious virus, the 5th day in a row that the country tallied more than 3,000 additional cases.
The daily tally was 895 higher than the previous day, according to the Department of Health (DOH)'s latest bulletin.
Of the nearly 5,000 cases, 2,619 came from the National Capital Region. (NCR)
The total number of recoveries are now at 187,116.
The country also tallied 186 new fatalities from the highly contagious illness, raising the death toll to 4,292, significantly higher than the 42 deaths tallied last Friday.
The DOH said 82 percent of the reported cases this Saturday were confirmed from August 30 to September 12.
As of writing, the Philippines has 66,455 active coronavirus cases, of which 89.2 percent of the patients are exhibiting mild symptoms, according to official DOH figures.
Only one laboratory failed to submit results on time for the latest report.
The DOH previously said it was expecting an "irregularly high number of cases this week", as laboratories catch up due to their reporting delays.
Since the start of the pandemic, almost 28.2 million people worldwide have been infected by the COVID-19 virus, according to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus dashboard. Of those, 909,000 have died and almost 19 million have recovered.
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