COVID-19 cases in Philippines surpass 220,000

Residents of San Juan City gather to receive financial aid from the government on August 28, 2020.
The STAR/Michael Varcas

MANILA, Philippines — The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the Philippines surpassed 220,000 Monday, with 3,446 more infections tallied by the Department of Health.

To date, the novel coronavirus has sickened 220,819 people in the country—the highest in Southeast Asia. Of the figure, 59,699 were active cases or those still infected.

Eighty-six percent or 2,965 of the additional cases were detected in the last 14 days.

Most of the newly-reported cases or 1,900 were from Metro Manila. It was followed by Laguna (163), Cavite (161), Leyte (155) and Pampanga (116).

President Rodrigo Duterte is expected to address the nation Monday night to announce the updated quarantine classifications. Metro Manila and other urban hubs returned to more lenient general community quarantine in mid-August after a two-week lockdown.

The DOH also announced 165 recoveries, raising the number of people who have been cleared of COVID-19 to 157,562. The department on Sunday logged 22,319 recoveries as part of its time-based recovery policy.

Total recoveries made up 71% of the country’s confirmed cases.

Meanwhile, the death toll reached 3,558 with 38 new deaths. Metro Manila accounted for the most number of newly-reported fatalities with 19, followed by Calabarzon (9) and Central Visayas (4).

Thirty-one of the additional deaths happened in August, four in July and three in June.

Monday’s figures were based on the submissions of 97 out of 110 operational testing laboratories. The department noted it had removed 23 duplicates from the case count.

Global coronavirus infections soared past 25.1 million with at least 845,000 deaths.

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