The Department of Health on Sunday logged just 36 new COVID-19 cases across the country, the smallest tally in 1,052 days and the sixth straight day there have been fewer than 200 new cases reported.
It was the lowest daily total since 13 were reported on March 20, 2020— two years, 10 months, and 16 days ago near the start of the pandemic.
Active cases have also decreased to 9,378, the lowest in 218 days since 9,105 active cases were reported on July 2 last year.
The new cases bring the country’s caseload to 4,073,826, according to the DOH’s COVID-19 tracker. Total recoveries increased by 217 cases to 3,998,597, and the death toll rose by 12 to 65,851.
The region with the greatest number of new cases over the last fortnight is Metro Manila with 614 cases, followed by Calabarzon with 268; Region XI with 175; Region VI with 151; and Region III with 138.
Independent monitoring group OCTA Research said the country’s positivity rate—the percentage of people who were found positive for COVID-19 among the total number of individuals tested—dropped to 1.8% on Friday.
The DOH last week said that it expects the arrival of bivalent vaccines—second-generation jabs formulated to target the Omicron variant—donated by the COVAX facility and other countries by the end of March.