PH logs record-high 22,366 new COVID-19 cases


The Philippines registered 22,366 new cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) on Monday, Aug. 30—the highest number of new infections recorded on a single day since the start of the pandemic.

Medical frontliners assist an elderly going out of the ambulance in Manila (Ali Vicoy)

This latest count beat the previous highest daily count reported by the Department of Health (DOH) last Aug. 28 with 19,441 cases.

The latest figure pushed the country’s running case tally to 1,976,202, of which, 7.5 percent or 148,594 are active cases, according to the DOH’s case bulletin.

Of the active cases, 95.7 percent are experiencing mild symptoms, 1.7 percent are asymptomatic, 0.6 percent are critical, 1.1 percent are severe, and 0.97 percent are in moderate condition.

The death toll also rose to 33,330, which is equivalent to 1.69 percent of the country’s total COVID-19 cases, after the Health department reported that 222 more people have died.

Meanwhile, the number of recoveries increased by 16,864 to 1,794,278, which represents 90.8 percent of the nationwide case tally.

ICU beds occupancy rising

The Health department reported that the intensive care unit (ICU) utilization rate in the country increased to 74 percent from 71 percent the previous day.

On the other hand, 65 percent of the country’s total isolation beds were utilized, 70 percent of the ward beds are occupied, while 53 percent of the total number of ventilators are in use.

The ICU bed occupancy in Metro Manila was pegged at 72 percent, the DOH reported.

Of the total isolation beds in the region, 64 percent were utilized, 72 percent of ward beds were occupied, while 59 percent of the ventilators in the region were in use.

The DOH said 187 duplicates were removed from the total case count. Of these, 174 are recoveries and a lone death.

Moreover, 105 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.

All labs were operational on Aug. 28, the Health department said, while two labs were not able to submit their data to the COVID-19 Document Repository System (CDRS).