People visit the SM By the Bay at the Mall of Asia grounds in Pasay City on November 19, 2021, amid easing movement restrictions. George Calvelo, ABS-CBN News
MANILA— The Philippines on Friday announced 863 new COVID-19 cases, the third consecutive day it logged less than 1,000 new infections, data from the health department showed.
Of the total 2,830,387 cases, 17,853 or 0.6 percent were active infections, according to the latest Department of Health (DOH) bulletin.
This is the second lowest number of active cases this year, following 17,796 active infections on Thursday, said the ABS-CBN Investigative and Research Group, citing DOH data adjusted for duplicate cases.
The number of fresh cases, meantime, is the second lowest this year, following 841 recorded on Nov. 16, the research group said. This is also the fifth time in the last 11 days that the daily tally fell below 1,000, it added.
COVID-related deaths increased by 142, resulting in a total of 48,017 fatalities. There were 791 more recoveries, raising the total number of recuperations to 2,764,517.
A total of 17 duplicates were removed from the total case count, including 16 recoveries, while 77 cases were found to have tested negative and have been removed from the cumulative number of infections, the health agency said.
Some 128 cases previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation, the DOH added.
The positivity rate was at 2.5 percent, based on samples of 38,998 individuals on Nov. 24, Wednesday.
Two laboratories were non-operational on Wednesday while 2 others were unable to submit their data, the DOH said. These laboratories contribute on average 0.2 percent of samples tested and 0.1 percent of positive cases, it added.
The intensive care unit (ICU) bed utilization rate was at 29 percent in both Metro Manila and nationwide.
The Philippines aims to inoculate 15 million individuals during its 3-day vaccination drive from Nov. 29 to Dec. 1.
It has so far fully vaccinated 34.6 million people, while 43.9 million have received an initial dose, according to data gathered by the ABS-CBN Investigative and Research Group.