PH's new COVID-19 all-time high is 15,310 but over 3,700 are from backlog two days ago
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, April 2) — The country recorded 15,310 new COVID-19 cases on Friday – a new all-time high – but the Department of Health said 3,709 of these infections were part of a backlog from two days ago.
Even without the over 3,000 cases, the country's single day rise in infections would still have been a new all-time high at 11,601. The department explained it encountered issues with uploading the laboratory data into the COVIDKaya surveillance system on March 31 but assured the public that the problems have been resolved.
"We no longer have backlogs," DOH spokesperson Ma. Rosario Vergeire said.
The March 31 daily case tally was 6,128 – the lowest in the past two weeks. But adding the backlog, the case count for that day would be 9,837. Vergeire explained the system rejected some of the reports due to the high volume of case records being uploaded.
"[O]ver the past week, the average number of records being uploaded into the system was 9,000 per day," she added.
The DOH's latest case bulletin showed a total of 771,497 infections with 153,809 active cases – also a new record for highest number of currently ill patients listed in a day. This is equivalent to 19.9% of the case count. At least 96.3% of these active cases have mild symptoms, 2.4% have no symptoms, 0.5% are in critical condition, 0.5% are severe cases, and 0.32% are in moderate condition.
The total does not yet include data from seven testing laboratories that have yet to submit their reports, the DOH added.
The death toll also climbed to 13,320 or 1.73% of the total number of infections after 17 more people died. Meanwhile, 434 others recovered, raising the survivor count to 604,368, which is 78.3% of the COVID-19 tally. The DOH said it reclassified five survivors into deaths after validation, and removed 12 duplicates, including nine recoveries.
Vergeire said the DOH expects the daily case tally to go down in the next few weeks due to the ongoing enhanced community quarantine in high transmission areas, which will expire on Sunday.
Positivity rate
The bulletin also showed a positivity rate at 20.7% out of 35,143 tests based on data as of noon, April 1. Positivity rate is the percentage of individuals who tested positive out of all patients tested. The recent rate is just a few points below the all-time high at 23.8% on April 4 last year. However, at that time the country only conducted 2,407 tests, with 574 found positive. The DOH will still update the percentage once it gets the remaining data from the laboratories.
The DOH COVID-19 tracker also updated the positivity rate for March 31 at 21% after 9,818 people tested positive out of 46,685 patients tested. It is the highest percentage after the April 4 all-time high record.
Experts said a bigger percentage suggests higher viral transmission within the community and the need to increase testing capacity.
