The Philippines logged 39,004 new coronavirus infections on Saturday, topping the previous record of 37,207 cases set just a day before.
The Philippines established a new daily record for new infections for COVID-19 at 39,004 cases last Saturday, bringing the country’s total caseload to 3,168,379.
Of this number, a total of 280,813 are active positive cases.
There were also 43 more deaths from COVID-19, pushing the death toll to 52,858.
The positivity rate stood at 47.1% out of 78,774 tests, which is way above the 5% threshold set by the World Health Organization for opening economies.
The Department of Health has declared a community transmission of the Omicron variant in the National Capital Region. The declaration came weeks after the country began seeing an increase in COVID-19 cases, primarily in Metro Manila.
However, OCTA Research fellow Guido David was quoted as saying that the daily growth rate of COVID-19 cases in Metro Manila is steadily declining, noting that this dropped to 3% on Saturday from 5% last Friday.
But while the increase in cases has slowed down in Metro Manila, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire cautioned that infections are still rising.
