Total COVID deaths breach 33K; positivity rate hits record-high of 27.5 percent

(Eagle News) – The Philippines recorded 19,441 new COVID-19 cases, the highest single-day tally since the pandemic began last year.

The total deaths since COVID-19 began also reached 33,008 with the addition of 167 new fatalities on Saturday, Aug. 19.

Total active cases have reached 142,679 or 7.4 percent of the total COVID-19 cases. Total COVID-19 cases hit 1,935,700 as of Saturday, Aug. 28.

On Saturday, the Department of Health (DOH) also recorded a high number of recoveries at 19,191. This brought to 1,760,013 the total COVID-19 recoveries since the pandemic began.

But the DOH also reported a positivity rate of 27.5 percent, which is the highest since the pandemic began.

This just emphasizes how aggressive and infectious the Delta variant is which has affected almost all countries in the world, including those with high vaccination rates such as Israel and the United States.

Still, in the Philippines, 97.3 percent of the active cases are considered mild or asymptomatic.

The DOH said that it is expecting that the COVID-19 cases would be increasing in the next days. Almost 70 percent of the country is under alert level 4, which means hospital utilization rate is at over 70 percent, explained Undersecretary Rosario Vergeire.

(Eagle News Service)