MANILA (UPDATE) — The Philippines' total COVID-19 cases swelled to 803,398 on Monday as it reported 8,355 additional coronavirus infections.

According to the ABS-CBN Data Analytics Team, the last 100,000 cases recorded by the country was reported in the last 10 days.

Active cases stood at 143,726, or 17.9 percent of the cumulative total.

The country has been logging record-high daily cases since March. The number of new cases on Monday is the 11th highest since the start of the pandemic.

The OCTA Group estimates that cumulative total of COVID-19 cases in the Philippines will reach 1 million by the end of April.

• Philippines' total COVID-19 cases may reach 1 million by end-April: OCTA

In its COVID-19 bulletin for the day, the Department of Health said the relatively lower number of cases compared to previous days is due to the limited laboratory operations during the Holy Week.

It said the lower number does not mean a change in the trend of cases.

“Out of the 239 licensed laboratories, only 219 laboratories conducted tests on April 1; 207 conducted tests on April 2; and 216 conducted tests on April 3,” the DOH said.

For Monday’s tally, 3 laboratories were unable to submit their data on time.

There are only 10 new COVID-19 related deaths reported, raising the total fatalities to 13,435.

Total recoveries went up by 145 to 646,237.

There were 8 cases, 4 tagged as recoveries, that were removed from the official tally due to duplicate entries.

There were also 4 recovered cases that turned out to be fatalities after final validation.

Of the active cases, 97.5% have mild symptoms, 1.1% are asymptomatic, 0.34% have moderate symptoms, 0.6% have severe symptoms, and 0.5% are in critical condition.

The government has extended the enhanced community quarantine for NCR and its nearby provinces of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal for another week to curb the alarming rise in new cases.

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque told ANC on Monday that it is unlikely the ECQ will be extended for a third week. Instead, he said the NCR Plus bubble might be placed under a modified enhanced community quarantine, depending on whether the number of new infections decline.

As of April 3, the government said 795,320 people have received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccines in the Philippines. But with 70 million people targeted for inoculation this year to reach herd immunity, many are criticizing the slow rollout of vaccines.

There are almost 54 million people currently infected with COVID-19 worldwide.

Since the start of the pandemic, more than 131.3 million people have contracted the disease, according to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus dashboard. Of those, more than 2.8 million have died and almost 74.5 million have recovered.

The Philippines' first confirmed COVID-19 case was reported on Jan. 30 last year in a Chinese woman who arrived from Wuhan City, China where the disease is believed to have first emerged.

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