PH COVID-19 Cases Surpass 399K After 1,347 New Cases Confirmed

MANILA – Cumulative COVID-19 cases in the country reached 399,749 on Tuesday after registering an additional 1,347 cases, data from the Department of Health (DOH) showed.

The new cases of the day do not include data from 8 accredited laboratories that did not deliver the data on time.

The health department said the lower number of new cases reported Tuesday was due to the “relatively lower notification rate” from laboratories on Monday, November 9.

“Based on initial analysis, only 84 percent of labs reported that day, which is lower compared to previous days when there were lab reporting rates of 90% or more,” DOH said in its latest bulletin .

“Of the labs that did not show up last Sunday, most had no operations that day,” he added.

The province of Cavite led the areas of the country that registered the highest daily additional cases with 92, followed by the city of Manila with 77, the city of Quezón with 58, the city of Baguio with 55 and the province of Laguna with 52 infections confirmed.

The cases of recoveries increased by 187 compared to the previous day. The total number of recovered patients stood at 361,919, representing 90.5 percent of the total registered cases.

The virus causing the disease, which first emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year, has claimed 14 more lives in the Philippines, according to the health department. The death toll stood at 7,661.

To date, the Philippines has 30,169 active infections, representing 7.5 percent of the cumulative total cases. The DOH said 92.4 percent of currently ill patients are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms.

The DOH said that of the 21,841 people who were tested as of noon Monday, 1,274 or 5.8 percent tested positive for the disease.

A total of 47 duplicates were removed from the total count, according to the health department. Of these, 43 were labeled as recovered cases.

Meanwhile, 9 cases initially labeled as recoveries were found to be deaths after validation.

Nearly 51 million worldwide have contracted COVID-19, according to a tally by the US-based Johns Hopkins University, where the US, India, Brazil, France and Russia have the highest total cases.

Since the pandemic began, nearly 1.3 million have died and more than 33 million have recovered.