COVID-19 cases in Philippines hit 56,259; death toll at 1,534
MANILA, Philippines (Updated 9:52 a.m.) — Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases in the Philippines jumped to 56,259 as of Sunday, with the Department of Health also reporting massive increases in the number of recoveries and deaths.
In a briefing Monday morning, the DOH announced that 2,124 new infections were added to the national caseload. Numbers related to COVID-19 were supposed to be released on Sunday afternoon but the department failed to publicize the figures for the first time due to “significant volume of data gathered.”
Of the newly-added cases, 1,690 were detected within the last three days, while 434 were from the department’s validation backlog.
For over a week now, the DOH has been tallying over 1,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases every day. This came as the national government further eased containment measures nationwide, save for Cebu City in Central Visayas which will be under enhanced community quarantine at least until July 15.
The agency said it has removed 87 duplicates from the total case count.
Spike in recoveries, deaths
The DOH also reported that the number of people who were given a clean bill of health climbed by 2,009 to 16,046.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said this was due to “robust surveillance [that] has led to increase of reconciled data on recoveries.”
The number of additional deaths also rose significantly at 162. This brought the total number of fatalities related to COVID-19 in the country to 1,534.
Of the newly-reported deaths, 51 happened in July while 90 occurred in June. Twenty of the deaths happened in May while one in April.
Sixty-one percent of these deaths were from Central Visayas, while 23% were from Metro Manila.
Vergeire said more deaths are expected to be reported in the coming days as a result of the agency’s data reconciliation efforts with local governments.
“Dapat po ba tayong mabahala? Opo. Because one too many deaths is a concern,” the health official said.
(Should we get concerned? Yes, because one too many deaths is a concern.)
The country has so far tested 908,779 for coronavirus. Currently, there are 85 testing laboratories nationwide.
The novel coronavirus has killed at least 568,000 since the outbreak emerged in China last December. Over 12.86 million cases of COVID-19 have been registered.
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