Daily PH COVID-19 cases hit new all-time high with 28,707 more infections

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 9) — The country on Sunday recorded 28,707 new COVID-19 infections, the highest daily case number posted since the pandemic hit in 2020.

It broke the previous record of 26,458 cases, which was logged just the day before.

Up to 99%, or 28,512, of the newly confirmed infections were reported within the last 14 days, according to the Department of Health. Most of the cases were in Metro Manila with 16,803, Calabarzon with 5,821, and Central Luzon with 2,841.

The overall count stands at 2,965,447. These include 128,114 active cases, or people still battling the disease, which account for 4.3% of the total.

The DOH said of the active cases, 119,276 are mild, 2,851 are moderate, 1,465 are severe, and 309 are critical. Some 4,213 patients are asymptomatic or not exhibiting any symptoms.

The positivity rate, which refers to how prevalent positive cases are, soared to 44%, setting another record. The figure is way higher than the 5% benchmark set by the World Health Organization as an indicator of control over the virus transmission in any country.

Meanwhile, only 15 new deaths were recorded, bringing the death toll to 52,150. That's about 1.76% of the nationwide COVID-19 tally.

Among the new fatalities, 11 were reported in January, one in December 2021, one in October 2021, and two in September 2021.

At least 2,579 more persons survived the disease, pushing the recovery count to 2,785,183 — or 93.9% of the case count.

Following validation, the DOH reclassified three recoveries previously tagged as deaths — and removed 135 duplicates, which include 116 recoveries.

The agency said all testing laboratories were operational as of Jan. 7. However, 14 of these, which contribute an average of 5.1% samples and 5.7% of positive individuals, failed to submit data.