MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health on Sunday reported the recovery of 19,630 patients as the national coronavirus caseload rose to over 304,000.
The additional recoveries raised the total number of COVID-19 survivors to 252,510. Every Sunday, the DOH announces thousands of patients cleared of the virus that causes COVID-19 as part of its Oplan Recovery program, which tags mild and asymptomatic cases as recovered after a two-week quarantine and once symptoms have disappeared upon a doctor’s assessment.
Of the new recoveries, 18,892 were time-based, while 738 were from routine reports.
With 2,995 new infections, the country’s coronavirus caseload rose to 304,226. The country is still reporting thousands of cases every day despite implementing the world’s longest lockdown.
The additional cases were mostly from outbreak epicenter Metro Manila (1,065). It was followed by Cavite (297), Bulacan (180), Batangas (157) and Laguna (143).
The UP OCTA research group noted a decline in the number of cases in the country, including the capital region. The government has been tallying less than 3,000 infections daily over the past few days.
But the researchers warned that premature easing of quarantine measures in Metro Manila would result in an “exponential” rise in cases by Christmas time. The government is expected to announce new quarantine classifications this week.
Meanwhile, the fatality country increased to 5,344 after 60 more COVID-19-related deaths were recorded. Thirty-seven of the additional deaths occurred this month.
The number of active infections stood at 46,372, which represented 15% of the total cases.
Over 32.7 million cases of the coronavirus, including at least 992,000 deaths, have been recorded globally