MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines continues to see an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases with 3,148 infections reported in the past week.

In a weekly bulletin issued on Monday, the Department of Health said an average of 450 cases per day were recorded from April 17 to 23.

There were 345 patients with severe and critical conditions, which accounted for 8.7% of the total COVID-19 admissions in the country as of Sunday.

Data from the health department showed that only 13.7% of 2,010 beds in intensive care units were used, while 17.4% of 17,152 non-ICU beds were occupied.

The DOH earlier said that while some hospitals have increasing admissions for other illnesses such as heart diseases, no medical facility has reported full capacity yet.

The agency also verified five deaths due to COVID-19 in the past week. None of these deaths occurred in the last two weeks.

The DOH on Sunday clarified the 26 provinces under Alert Level 2 for the rest of April were not escalated from Alert Level 1. Rather, these areas have maintained their Alert Level 2 status since June 2022.

The Philippines has confirmed over four million COVID-19 infections, with more than 66,000 deaths, since the pandemic began in early 2020.

Over 78.4 million people have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 since 2021. However, only 23.8 million have gotten boosters.