THE country’s daily number of new coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases has dropped below the 1,000-mark, with 984 infections recorded on Monday.

In its latest COVID-19 bulletin, the Department of Health (DOH) said this brought the active case tally to 19,798 — down from Sunday’s 21,101.

The new cases on Monday are the lowest in less than a week since the country recorded only 849 new cases last November 16.

Meanwhile, 2,229 new recoveries were also reported, bringing the recovery count to 2,759,76.

Recoveries account for 97.6 percent of the total case count which has reached 2,826,853 since the start of the pandemic last year.

About 56.6 percent of these active cases are mild, 4.6 percent are asymptomatic, 5.6 percent are critical, 13.3 percent are severe, and 20.02 percent are moderate.

Some 218 new deaths were reported which brought the country’s Covid-19 fatalities to 47,288.

According to DOH data on November 20, about 2.8 percent of 35,901 who were tested turned out positive for Covid-19.

“About 447 duplicates were removed from the total case count, and of these, 434 are recoveries and 4 are deaths. Some 94 cases were found to have tested negative and have been removed from the total case count as they are recoveries,” it said.

“Moreover, 169 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation,” it added.

Two laboratories were operational on Nov. 20 and three laboratories were not able to submit their data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System.

The DOH noted the three non-reporting laboratories contribute, on average, 2.7 percent of samples tested, and 2.0 percent of positive individuals based on data in the last 14 days.

To date, 32 percent of 3,700 intensive care unit beds, 27 percent of 19,900 isolation beds, 17 percent of 13,200 ward beds, and 18 percent of 3,100 ventilators are utilized by patients with Covid-19 nationwide.

Meanwhile, 31 percent of 1,300 intensive care unit beds, 24 percent of 4,700 isolation beds, 23 percent of 4,000 ward beds, and 20 percent of 1,000 ventilators dedicated to patients with Covid-19 are in use in the National Capital Region. Philippine News Agency