Coronavirus infections in Philippines breach 356,000 mark
MANILA, Philippines — Health authorities on Sunday recorded 14,941 new recoveries from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in its latest "mass recovery" along with 2,379 new cases of the pathogen, bringing their totals to 310,158 and 356,618, respectively.
In the Department of Health's latest case bulletin on Sunday afternoon, health officials also recorded 50 new casualties linked to the virus, bringing its death toll to 6,652.
Sans the total deaths and recoveries, there are still 39,808 active cases of COVID-19 in the country as of Sunday afternoon, or cases still infected with the virus that have not recovered or passed away.
Sunday’s additions bring the recovery rate in the Philippines to 87%, up from 86% on Sunday, October 11.
The day before on Saturday, health authorities also added 2,673 cases of the coronavirus. Over the past week, coronavirus infections increased by 17,277 after increasing by 16,844 the week before.
The weekly mass recoveries are part of the DOH's Oplan Recovery program, which tags mild and asymptomatic cases as recoveries following the World Health Organization's official discharging criteria.
It has been eight months or 215 days since the first enhanced community quarantine was implemented in the Philippines in March, though the national government is still wrestling with curbing the spread of the coronavirus, while also asserting that it is winning against the pandemic and that thinking otherwise is a “wrong view.”
However, the Philippines still under the longest recorded quarantine in the world, and the daily additions in coronavirus cases still number in the thousands—the only country in the Western Pacific Region of the World Health Organization to be doing so.
The Philippines is also among the top 20 countries in coronavirus cases and has the highest number of confirmed patients in Southeast Asia, though President Rodrigo Duterte has routinely emphasized in his public addresses that securing a vaccine is the only solution to the Philippines' coronavirus situation moving forward.
Worldwide, over 39 million coronavirus cases have been recorded, leading to over 1.1 million deaths, according to latest data from the World Health Organization.
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