FOR the fifth straight day, new coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in the country stayed below the 1,000-mark but the Department of Health yesterday reported that 144 more have lost their struggle against the deadly virus.
In its latest bulletin, the DOH said total cases in the country rose to 3,667,542, counting the 870 latest new infections, while the death toll climbed to 57,023 for a case fatality rate of 1.55 percent.
There were 866 new cases last Wednesday, 989 last Thursday, 853 last Friday, and 941 last Saturday.
The current positivity rate in the Philippines stood at 3.9 percent among the 24,543 tested samples on March 4.
There were 48,793 active cases, with over 44,000 mild cases and more than 2,600 moderate cases.
The health department also reported 1,433 additional recoveries, raising the number of survivors to 3,561,726. The DOH said the recovery rate stood at 97.1 percent.
Beginning today, Monday, the DOH will issue the COVID-19 case bulletin on a weekly, instead of daily, basis.
For the first time this year, the PNP reported no new case of COVID infection in the police force yesterday.
A surge in COVID cases in the country last January due to the Omicron variant did not spare the police force, which recoded a high of 548 new cases last January 14.
But new cases in the PNP have been on the downtrend since then. The PNP reported just three COVID cases last Saturday.
As of yesterday, total cases in the PNP stayed at 48,824 with 12 active cases, 128 deaths, and 48,684 recoveries.
The PNP also said 220,453 or 98.12 percent of its total personnel have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, with 128,037 or 58.08 percent having received booster shots.
It said 3,559 cops or 1.58 percent of the PNP strength have received the first dose of two dose vaccines. This mean only 762 or 0.30 percent have yet to be vaccinated, with 323 having valid reasons not to be inoculated and 349 having none. — With Victor Reyes
