(File photo)

QUEZON CITY, (PIA) -- The country's COVID-19 cases daily average went down by 10 percent for the period Aug. 29 to Sept. 4, the Department of Health (DOH) said Monday.

The DOH reported that from 2,752 per day recorded from Aug. 22 to 28, the number decreased to 2,449 daily in the recent week.

The latest case bulletin showed there were 17,145 new cases and 354 verified deaths.

Of the additional deaths, the DOH said 108 occurred from Aug. 22 to Sept. 4.

In the same period, 40 cases were added to the tally of severe and critical infections, which went down to 768 from the previous week’s 807.

Only 23.5 percent or 595 out of the 2,529 intensive care unit (ICU) beds are in use, while 29.3 percent or 5,974 of 20,387 non-ICU beds are utilized.

To date, about 72,620,347 or 92.98 percent of the country’s target population (78,100,578) are vaccinated against COVID-19, including 78.14 percent of 8,721,357 senior citizens.

As of Sept. 4, a total of 18,194,645 have received booster shots out of the fully vaccinated population. (PIA-NCR)