Philippines logs over 14,000 new COVID-19 cases, 164 more deaths

MANILA, Philippines — The country logged 14,786 new COVID-19 infections on Saturday, pushing the nationwide tally to 2,580,173, the Department of Health said.

• Active cases: 144,061 or 5.6% of the total
• Recoveries: 894, pushing total to 2,397,456
• Deaths: 164, bringing toll to 38,656

The positivity rate was 22.1% based on the results of 68,233 people tested on Thursday. 

Probe into face shield tampering

• The Department of Health said it is investigating the alleged tampering of face shields procured from Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp. It also suspended succeeding deliveries of face shields from the company, pending results of its investigation.
   
• US pharmaceutical firm Merck said it will seek authorization of its antiviral drug molnupiravir for COVID-19 after it showed “compelling results” in a clinical trial.
   
• The United States government will send five shipments totaling 5.57 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to the Philippines by next week.
   
• Nearly 46 million doses have been administered across the archipelago, with over 24.3 million given as first shots. More than 21.5 million have completed COVID-19 vaccination.