5,735 new coronavirus infections push Philippines caseload to 1.57M

MANILA, Philippines — Local health authorities on Thursday reported 5,735 more COVID-19 infections, bringing the national caseload to 1,572,287.

The Department of Health in its bulletin said one laboratory failed to submit testing results. 

• Active cases: 56,273 or 3.6% of the total

• Recoveries: 4,069, pushing total to 1,488,437

• Deaths: 176, bringing total to 27,577

GCQ stays despite calls for pre-emptive lockdown in Metro Manila

• President Rodrigo Duterte last night announced that Metro Manila would remain under general community quarantine with heightened curbs until mid-August amid the threat of the more infectious Delta variant of COVID-19.

• This, despite calls from the OCTA Research Group and Metro Manila mayors for a pre-emptive two-week lockdown to prevent the devastating surge in cases driven by the Delta variant seen in neighboring countries. 

• Another 97 cases of the highly infectious variant were detected by local health authorities today, bringing the country's caseload to 216. 

• Earlier this morning, the Philippines received another 1.5 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine made by Chinese drugmaker Sinovac Biotech. 

• The United Kingdom will donate 415,000 doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to the Philippines, boosting the country’s vaccination efforts as it races against coronavirus variants.

 — Bella Perez-Rubio