2,498 new cases push Philippines’ COVID-19 tally to 61,266
MANILA, Philippines (Updated, 5:20 p.m.) — The Philippines reached a troubling milestone of crossing 60,000 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases Thursday after the Department of Health reported 2,498 new infections nationwide.
To date, the COVID-19 pandemic has afflicted 61,266 people in the country.
Of the newly-announced cases, 1,246 were classified “fresh” or were detected in the last three days. The other 1,252 were “late” cases or where part of the department’s backlog.
An overwhelming majority or 76% of these infections were detected in Metro Manila. Cebu City was in far second with 198 cases, while Cavite, Davao del Sur and Laguna accounted for 57, 44 and 44 cases, respectively.
The country has experiencing another surge in coronavirus infections following the further easing of quarantine measures. President Rodrigo Duterte announced Wednesday the transition of Cebu City from the strictest enhanced community quarantine to MECQ.
Outbreak epicenter Metro Manila will remain under general community quarantine at least until end-July.
The DOH also reported 467 additional recoveries, pushing the total number of COVID-19 survivors in the country to 21,440.
But the fatality count also rose to 1,643 with the addition of 29 deaths. Of these newly-reported deaths, eight happened in July, while 19 occurred in June.
Eighty-two duplicates were removed from the total case count. The total number of active cases in the country stood at 38,183 as of Thursday.
The country has so far tested 984,313 individuals for the coronavirus. The government is aiming to test 10 million Filipinos in the next eight to ten months.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said Wednesday that the Philippines has “successfully flattened the curve since April,” citing longer case and mortality doubling time.
Hours after he made the pronouncement, Duque turned to Twitter to issue a clarification. He said the country “bent” the curve in April after the implementation of ECQ in March.
The novel coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 584,000 people out of at least 13.55 million infected worldwide.
Related video:
- Latest
- Trending
