The Philippines continued to see a declining number of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases as it recorded 8,702 new infections on Thursday, Jan. 3.
It was the third consecutive day that the country reported less than 10,000 cases.
There were also 15,290 new survivors and 71 more deaths logged on Thursday, the DOH said.
Active COVID-19 cases nationwide were at 153,335. The total number of recoveries jumped to 3,377,958 while the death count rose to 54,168.
Of the active cases, a total of 143,493 patients have mild symptoms, 4,923 are asymptomatic, 3,067 are moderate, 1,528 are severe, and 324 are critical.
Meanwhile, the country's overall tally of confirmed cases since the pandemic started was at 3,585,461.
Despite the downward trend of COVID-19 cases, infectious disease expert Dr. Edsel Salvana reminded the public to still adhere to the protocols.
“There are two reasons bakit mababa ang cases natin. Una, marami ng tao ang nabakunahan at pangalawa, nananatiling compliant ang mga tao sa ating minimum public health standards. Kung hindi tayo maging maingat pwede pa rin umakyat ang mga cases natin (There are two reasons why our cases are declining. First, many people are now vaccinated and second, people remain compliant with our minimum public health standards. If we are not careful, our cases can still increase),” he said during a public briefing.
“So, hindi po ibig sabihin na dahil mababa ang mga kaso tatanggalin na natin lahat itong pagmamask at pag physical distance dahil alam natin na nandyan pa rin yung virus at pwede pa rin siyang umusbong uli (it doesn't mean that just because the number of cases is decreasing, we will already remove the face mask and will not observe physical distancing. We know that the virus is still there and cases can still increase),” he added.