MANILA, Philippines (Updated 5:40 p.m.) — More than 26,000 people in the Philippines have been sickened by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as President Rodrigo Duterte is set to decide on the fate of the country’s virus restrictions later Monday.
The Department of Health registered 470 new COVID-19 infections Monday, pushing the national caseload to 26,420.
Of the newly-validated cases, 348 were patients who tested positive within the last three days. Thirty-eight percent of these cases were detected in Metro Manila, while 23% were from Central Visayas. The remaining 40% were reported elsewhere in the country.
There were also 142 late cases or patients who tested positive from at least four days earlier.
The DOH also logged 298 additional COVID-19 survivors—the highest number of COVID-19 recoveries in a day since the outbreak began in the Philippines. This raised the total number of COVID-19 survivors to 6,252.
Total recoveries accounted for around 24% of the nation’s confirmed cases.
But 10 more people succumbed to COVID-19, bringing the nation’s death toll to 1,098. Three of the deaths happened on June 11, one on June 11, while the remaining six died months ago.
The DOH on Sunday reported a downward trend in the country’s COVID-19 fatality rate despite spikes in the number of deaths in the past two days. The case fatality rate in the Philippines stood at 4.24%—lower than the global average of 5.6%.
In a Palace briefing, DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said it is aiming to test 1.5% of the country’s almost 110 million population for the coronavirus. A total of 467,564 persons have been tested in the country as of June 13.
Duterte is expected to announce his decision on whether or not Metro Manila—the center of the nation’s coronavirus outbreak— and some urban centers will shift to more relaxed modified general community quarantine on June 15.
The novel coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 432,000 people out of at least 7.89 million infected worldwide.
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