Active COVID-19 cases reach new all-time high at over 193,000 as infection total nears 915,000

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 16) — The country recorded a new all-time high of active cases with 193,476 currently sick patients, the Department of Health's Friday case bulletin said.

The DOH said the active case count is 21.1% of the total number of infections, which is 914,971, with 10,726 new cases. This is the second straight day that there were over 10,000 new daily cases. At least 96% of active cases are experiencing mild symptoms, 2.9% have no symptoms, 0.5% are in a severe state, 0.4% are in critical condition, and 0.30% are moderate infections.

The total excludes data from six laboratories that did not submit their reports on time, the department noted.

The death toll rose to 15,738 or 1.72% of the COVID-19 count after 145 more patients succumbed to the disease. It is the eight consecutive time that the country logged over 100 new deaths in a day. Meanwhile, 650 others were cleared of the virus, raising the recovery number to 705,757, equivalent to 77.1% of the case total.

The DOH said it reclassified 39 recoveries into fatalities after validation and deleted 40 duplicates, including 18 survivors and one fatality.

The daily positivity rate remained high at 19.7% with 41,905 tests conducted as of noon of April 15. The World Health Organization recommends that the positivity rate, or the percentage of infected individuals out of all patients tested, be kept below 5%. Otherwise, there may be high transmission and more undetected cases.

Despite these high figures, the OCTA Research noted that the growth in cases slowed down in the past two weeks, at least in the National Capital Region, which was recently placed on strict lockdown along with nearby provinces. OCTA said the positivity rate in the NCR dropped from 25% a week ago to 24%, but warned the demand for more hospital spaces may not ease soon as experts see another wave of infections in the coming weeks.

Among Filipinos abroad, 126 new infections were detected, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs. The total is 18,134 in 91 countries with 4,062 cases verified by the DOH, the DFA added. Two more Filipinos died, while 100 others recovered, making the death toll 1,115 and the recovery total 11,142 with 5,877 others getting treatment.