PH confirms 3k new COVID cases, no new deaths as govt mulls easing alert

MANILA, February 14 ------ The Philippines confirmed 3,050 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, bringing the country’s total to 3,637,280. No new deaths from COVID-19 were reported, due to issues with the government's case tracking system, meaning the country’s death toll from the disease remains at 54,930. The positivity rate was also at 11.7 percent, which is the lowest since Dec. 29 last year.

The Department of Health meanwhile also reported 5,811 new recoveries, pushing the total number of Filipinos who recovered from the disease to 3,500,956. This means that the country has a total of 81,394 active cases as of 4 p.m. Sunday, which is the lowest since January 7. The DOH said zero deaths were reported “due to the technical issues in extracting data from COVIDKaya.” “This has been coordinated with the DICT and rest assured that they are currently addressing this issue,” the DOH said.

New alert level classifications are expected to be announced on Monday, which would take effect starting Feb. 16.mThe government has said that it is preparing to remove restrictions in public transport and business establishments in an apparent shift to a "new normal", if the country's pandemic situation improves in the coming days. An independent research group meanwhile warned against prematurely easing to Alert Level 1, the lowest in a 5-level pandemic restrictions. They said the government should work first to further lower the positivity rate to 5 percent, which is the standard set by the World Health Organization.

Source: news.abs-cbn.com