Coronavirus cases soar past 70,000 after DOH logs 1,951 more patients
MANILA, Philippines — Health authorities logged 1,951 more patients of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on Tuesday, bringing the national caseload to 70,764.
In its latest tally on Tuesday afternoon, the Department of Health also tacked on two more deaths and 209 additional recoveries, bringing their totals to 1,837 and 23,289, respectively.
Accounting for recoveries and deaths, the number of active cases in the country stands at 45,646.
With Metro Manila under general community quarantine to restart the country’s economy and Metro Cebu still under modified enhanced community quarantine, the Philippines is still under the world’s longest quarantine.
Worldwide, the coronavirus has sickened 14.9 million people, while over 613,000 have died.
Just the day before on Monday, the Health department logged 1,521 additional COVID-19 infections.
It has been 126 days since ECQ was first implemented on March 17. Thousands of cases are now being recorded daily, though health officials say this is partially due to heightened testing capabilities.
At a press briefing on Tuesday, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said: "If we can afford it, why not? But the reality is we can't afford testing all 110 million Filipinos."
Roque earlier claimed that mass testing meant testing every Filipino in the country, something he also said was not physically possible. This is not what the call for "mass testing" means.
President Rodrigo Duterte’s speech aired earlier Tuesday morning featured a lengthy aside about arresting “stubborn” quarantine violators, though those in the government with similar lapses have been largely forgiven.
Law enforcement authorities have endorsed the deployment of fully-armed special forces and the intensifying of barangay enforcement as part of the “medical solution” needed to fight the new pathogen.
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