Philippines sees biggest rise in COVID-19 cases, reaches 89,374

The Philippines registered record-high additional coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases and recoveries, sending the country’s total number of infections to 89,374.

The Department of Health reported 3,954 additional COVID-19 infections—the highest number of cases in a single day since the outbreak began in the country.

Of the newly-announced cases, 1,703 cases were from Metro Manila. It was followed by Cebu with 958 cases, Laguna with 177, Rizal with 90 and Cavite with 87.

The DOH also logged a staggering 38,075 new recoveries. This raised the total number of COVID-19 survivors to 65,064.

DOH said the massive jumps in the number of new cases and recoveries were attributed to the department’s data reconciliation efforts with local government units.

But the death toll reached 1,983 with 23 more people succumbing to the illness.

The number of active cases stood at 22,327, 88% of which are mild cases.

‘Mass recovery’
The DOH said it implemented a “mass recovery” adjustment on July 15 in which all mild and asymptomatic cases had been re-tagged as recovered with endorsement from the regional offices. This resulted in 5,000 additional recoveries.

Previously, a patient can be only classified as recovered if test results come out as negative. But now, discharge and recovery criteria for suspect, probable and confirmed COVID-19 cases no longer entails repeat testing.

“Following Department Memorandum No. 2020-0258, as endorsed by clinical practice guidelines and our technical advisory groups, patients with mild or no symptoms are tagged as recovered 14 days from the date of onset of symptoms or by date specimen collection,” DOH said.

“Current recovery policies now show that at the 10th day of illness, the risk of transmitting the virus to other people is significantly reduced,” it added.

Under the guidelines, symptomatic patients who have clinically recovered and are no longer symptomatic for at least three days and have completed at least 14 days of isolation can be tagged as a recovered case without need for further testing, provided that a licensed medical doctor clears the patient.

The guidelines also stated that patients who also tested positive for the virus and remain asymptomatic for at least 14 days can discontinue quarantine and be deemed as recovered as long as a doctor clears the patient.

To date, some 1.36 million individuals have been tested for coronavirus in the country.

President Rodrigo Duterte is expected to announce new lockdown measures Thursday night.

The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 667,000 people worldwide since it emerged in China late last year, with nearly 17.02 million infected.

-Gaea Katreena Cabico (Philstar.com)

Source: Peso Economics