COVID-19 infections in Philippines rise to 245,143
MANILA, Philippines — The number of coronavirus cases in the Philippines increased to 245,143 Wednesday as the Department of Health reported more than 3,000 new infections.
The DOH recorded 3,176 additional cases based on the submissions of 105 out of 117 testing laboratories in the country.
Forty-one percent of the new cases were from Metro Manila (1,327), followed by Batangas (260), Laguna (193), Rizal (176) and Negros Occidental (155).
The department registered 376 new recoveries, taking the total number of people who got well to 185,543.
But it also logged 70 more deaths related to COVID-19, raising the toll to 3,986. A total of 49 deaths occurred in September and 10 in August.
Of the total case count, 55,614 were active infections.
There were 20 duplicates that were removed from the case tally as COVID-19 data undergo “constant cleaning and validation.”
In the past few days, the Philippines has been seeing fewer cases with additional infections logged daily staying below 3,000-level, except for September 4, September 8 and September 9.
The DOH reported Monday 1,383 additional COVID-19 cases—the lowest daily rise since May to July. The figure, however, was based on data submitted by only 88 out of 115 laboratories.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said an “irregularly high” number of COVID-19 cases are expected in the coming days as more testing laboratories submit complete data.
While she said that “there is nothing certain at this point,” Vergeire cited improvements in the government’s contact tracing response and hospital and critical care utilization rate.
“We are very cautious in issuing statements regarding these improvements although we would want the people to know that we are seeing improvements and there are good indicators but we still advise that we continue to comply with minimum health standards,” the health official said.
Some 2.722 million people have been so far tested in the country.
The novel coronavirus has killed at least 897,000 people since the outbreak emerged in China last December. More than 27.57 million cases have been registered.
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