Total COVID-related deaths breach 39,000

MANILA (UPDATED) - The Philippines on Friday listed 10,670 more COVID-19 cases in the country, as the health department this week confirmed that the growth infections slowed nationwide.

• As PH virus cases decline, public warned vs complacency: DOH

According to the ABS-CBN Investigative and Research Group, this is the 5th straight day that new cases were below 11,000.

"Prior to this week, the last time that the number of cases fell below 11,000 was nearly two months ago, on Aug. 17, when DOH announced 10,035 new cases," the researchers said.

The country's new caseload pushed the total recorded cases to 2,643,494, of which 118,203 or 4.5 percent are still active, the latest bulletin from the Department of Health (DOH) showed.

Positivity rate is at 16.9 percent, based on samples collected from 58,583 individuals on Wednesday.

The positivity rate is the lowest since Aug. 3, ABS-CBN Data Analytics head Edson Guido said.

There were also 191 new deaths, pushing the country's death toll to 39,232.

The ABS-CBN IRG also noted that the figure is the highest in a week, or since Oct. 1, when DOH registered 199 deaths.

The day's fresh deaths included 128 cases first tagged as recoveries, DOH said.

Technical issues

Earlier in the day, the agency separately reported 104 additional deaths from Oct. 5 and 6, as the issue with their data collating system COVIDKaya persisted.

No deaths were recorded on the said dates.

The agency said on Thursday that it would announce new fatalities in a separate advisory amid "technical issues encountered" with COVIDKaya.

"[This is] to reflect numbers not included in the previous case bulletins," the agency's note read.

The health department reported zero new deaths for 3 straight days, or from Sept. 24 to 26 due to the technical issue.

Recoveries, meanwhile, climbed by 7,691 to 2,486,059. The total number of recoveries account for 94 percent of the Philippines' running tally.

Two laboratories failed to submit data on time.

The intensive care unit (ICU) bed allocations in Metro Manila is 71 percent occupied, while this is 72 percent nationwide, the latest bulletin showed.

On Thursday, the agency said the relatively low number of new cases in the country does not mean that the public should be complacent.

The Philippines' new COVID-19 cases still ranged between 9,000 to 14,000 daily in the past week, data showed.

The dip in fresh infections, the DOH said, was announced after the agency took into consideration and "analyzed" all factors such as lower laboratory outputs, a decrease in test outputs resulting in lower positivity rate and fewer hospital admissions.

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