Philippines reports 1,047 new COVID-19 cases; total breaches 480,000

MANILA — There are now 480,737 total COVID-19 cases in the Philippines after the Department of Health (DOH) reported 1,047 new infections on Wednesday.

The additional cases do not include data from 3 laboratories that failed to submit their results on time. 

Since the holiday season, the daily tally of new cases has been relatively low. The DOH attributed it to the closure of laboratories during the holidays and the low turnout of individuals seeking to be tested.

Topping the list of areas with new cases are Davao City with 79, Quezon City with 58, Laguna with 55, and Bulacan and Cagayan de Oro City with 40 each.

The DOH also logged 26 new COVID-related deaths or a total of 9,347 fatalities.

There are also 339 new recovered patients, or a total of 448,700 recoveries. 

The number of active cases is at 22,690, or 4.7 percent of the cumulative total.

Of the active cases, 81.8% have mild symptoms, 8.5% are asymptomatic, 6% are in critical condition, 3.2% have severe symptoms, and 0.52% have moderate symptoms.

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The DOH said it had removed 3 cases, 1 tagged as recovered, from the official tally because of duplicate entries.

There were also 13 recovered cases that turned out to be fatalities. 

The OCTA Group previously predicted that the total number of cases in the country would reach 480,000 by the end of December.

The country's first coronavirus infection was confirmed on Jan. 30 last year in a Chinese woman who arrived from Wuhan City, China where the disease is believed to have first emerged.

Since the start of the pandemic, almost 86.5 million people have been infected by the COVID-19 virus, according to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus dashboard. Of those, almost 1.9 million have died and 48.5 million have recovered. Around 36 million people are currently infected with COVID-19.

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