MANILA – The Philippines’ Department of Health (DOH) reported 17,677 new COVID-19 infections on Tuesday, raising the number of confirmed cases in the Southeast Asian country to 3,459,646.

The DOH said the number of active cases dropped to 247,451 as the country’s positivity rate also dipped to 37.2 percent, for the first time below 40 percent since Jan. 6.

The DOH added that 79 more people died from COVID-19 complications, bringing the total death toll to 53,598. Six testing laboratories failed to submit data.

The COVID-19 risk levels for the Philippines and its capital region have been lowered to “high risk” from “critical risk,” Health Secretary Francisco Duque said.

In a report to President Rodrigo Duterte during a meeting aired late Monday night, Duque said the number of COVID-19 cases in Metro Manila continues to decline after reaching the peak, while the rest of the main island of Luzon “shows signs of plateauing.”

Duque also reported that COVID-19 deaths started to rise in mid-January after declining since September.

Read more: Philippines logs 28,471 new COVID-19 cases, death toll nears 53,000

Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that the Omicron variant of COVID-19 is now the “more predominant” variant in Metro Manila and is spreading in other regions.

“Cases, positivity rates, and utilization rates in areas outside Metro Manila continue to rise due to the ongoing transmission of the Omicron and Delta variants,” Vergeire said.

The Philippines reported the highest single-day tally on Jan. 15 with 39,004 new cases. The country, which has around 110 million population, has tested more than 25 million people for COVID-19 since the virus’ outbreak in 2020.