MANILA— The Philippines on Thursday registered 1,623 more COVID-19 cases, nearly double the daily tally on Wednesday, as authorities continued to monitor the pandemic situation amid the threat of the omicron variant.

The day's tally is considered the highest since Nov. 21, when the country confirmed 2,227 cases, data showed. On Wednesday, the health ministry reported 889 infections.

This pushed the country's running tally to 2,841,260, of which 11,772 or 0.4 percent are active.

Positivity rate is at 6.6 percent, based on samples from 30,933 individuals screened for the virus on Tuesday. This is the highest since Oct. 31, said ABS-CBN Data Analytics head Edson Guido said.

The Department of Health (DOH) on Wednesday attributed the spike in fresh cases to the public's holiday-related mobility, as well as their "reduced" compliance to minimum public health standards.

The agency had said it is so far unclear whether the omicron variant is driving the surge in new cases. Authorities have so far detected 4 cases of the more transmissible variant.

Meanwhile, fatalities rose to 51,373 after the DOH confirmed 133 additional deaths.

The agency said the majority or 126 of the day's deaths were first tagged as recoveries.

There were 256 more people who recovered from the respiratory disease, raising the tally to 2,778,115.

Three laboratories failed to submit data on time, while 2 laboratories were not operational on Dec. 28, DOH said.

Government earlier in the day said the whole country will remain under Alert Level 2 until mid-January, amid the rise in new COVID-19 cases.

• READ: Entire Philippines to stay under Alert Level 2 in first half of January: gov't

Of its 109 million population, the Philippines has fully vaccinated at least 48.6 million, with days left to hit its year-end target of completing 54 million inoculations.