DOH records 862 more coronavirus cases a day before shift to GCQ
MANILA, Philippines — Just a day before Metro Manila is set to graduate to relaxed rules under general community quarantine after over two months of enhanced community quarantine, the Department of Health recorded an additional 862 cases of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), bringing the national tally to 18,086.
According to the department’s latest tally issued on Sunday afternoon, 101 recoveries and 7 deaths were also logged, bringing their totals to 3,909 and 957, respectively.
The number of active cases in the Philippines stands at 13,220 as of this writing.
Sunday’s tally marks the third day of recording “fresh” and “late” cases or newly recorded cases versus cases that fell into clerical backlog due to delayed validation.
The first two days of this new system saw long delays on the part of the department, which typically released its daily tallies at 4 p.m. sharp.
Of the newly documented patients, 16 of the new cases are classified "fresh" while the remaining 846 are from backlog.
Six of the fresh cases were from Metro Manila, along with 238 of the late patients.
Throughout this week, the health department added 4,051 new cases since last Sunday, May 24, marking a 28.9% increase over the week.
Globally, 6,161,485 have been sickened by the virus as of this publishing, while 371,016 have died according to Worldometers.
On Thursday night, President Rodrigo Duterte announced that Metro Manila would be relaxed to general community quarantine starting Monday.
That same day, the health department recorded what was its biggest single-day jump at the time with 539 more cases of the new pathogen.
During that same address, Health Secretary Francisco Duque went as far as saying that the capacity of the country’s healthcare system was sufficient for the days ahead, despite experts and health workers alike warning about the state of mass testing and contact tracing and warning of a resulting second wave.
Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade also told the public: "Don't expect that train operation will be 100%. We have to balance our mandate to curb the spread of the virus. Therefore, the capacity will also be limited, gradual, and calculated."
Related video:
- Latest
- Trending
