The Philippines on Thursday logged 31,173 new COVID-19 infections as select pharmacies in Metro Manila began offering booster shots to the public.
The day's tally brought active cases to 275,364, with a total of 26,298 new recoveries and 110 new deaths reported.
Overall, a total of 3,324,478 COVID-19 cases have been reported since the pandemic began in March 2020, of which 2,995,961 have recovered and 53,153 died.
Starting Jan. 20, select pharmacies will offer COVID-19 boosters to provide Filipinos more chances to increase their defences against the virus. Five pharmacy outlets in Metro Manila joined the pilot run, with more to follow in other parts of the country.
According to the Department of Health, there have been 535 cases of the omicron variant detected in the country as of Wednesday. Of that number, three remain active, two have died, and 467 cases have been tagged as recovered. There are 20 cases whose outcomes are still being verified.
Metro Manila is under Alert Level 3 until Jan. 31 with a 'no vaccination, no ride' policy in effect to encourage inoculations and arrest the spread of COVID-19 driven by the hyper contagious omicron variant. Workers are some of those exempted from the policy.
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