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The Philippines on Monday breaks the 20K new COVID-19 cases in a single day, since the pandemic began early last year.

The Department of Health (DOH) reported 22,366 new COVID-19 cases in a day, making the country’s confirmed infection tally  to 1,976,202, of which 148,594 are active.

The health department recorded 222 recent fatalities, pushing the country’s COVID-19 death toll to 33,330, while 16,864 patients recovered.

Total recoveries stood at 1,794,278.

Positivity rate was at 27.5 percent, the DOH said.

At least “105 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation,” the agency said.

“All laboratories were operational on August 28, while 2 labs were not able to submit their data to the COVID-19 Document Repository System,” it said.

Recently, the DOH announced it has detected 516 more Delta variant cases. Of the total 1,789 of such cases in the country, 38 are active.

Of the additional B.1.617.2 variant infections, 473 were local cases, while 31 were returning overseas Filipinos (ROF), and 12 were still under verification, the DOH said in an earlier statement.

Six of the newly detected Delta cases remain active, five cases have died, 505 cases have been tagged as recovered, while the remaining are being validated by the regional and local health offices, DOH said.

Over the weekend, the DOH said nearly half of hospitals in the capital region are at high risk as occupancy rate remains between 71 and 85 percent.

The government’s hospital referral hotline is getting at least 500 calls every day, with most callers inquiring about what to do if they have COVID-19 but are asymptomatic, Health spokesperson Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire had said.

“We are meeting with local governments so that they will be establishing their triaging and navigation systems. ‘Yung mga hotlines po ng local government, kailangan pong gumana iyan para hindi po natatambak sa One Hospital Command natin ang mga tawag,” she said.

“So, local governments are your first step. Sila po ang una niyong tawagan, sila po ang makakatulong sa inyo para malaman kung saan pong facility kayo dapat dalhin,” according to the official.

The DOH has been urging the public to get vaccinated if they are already eligible for the COVID-19 jabs to avoid severe or critical cases that may need hospitalization.

As of Aug. 25, the Philippines has fully vaccinated 13.37 million people, which is 18.87 percent of the target number of fully inoculated individuals to attain herd immunity against the disease.

At least 18 million others have received their first dose.