Philippines logs 200 new COVID-19 cases, 41 new recoveries

MANILA (UPDATE) — The Department of Health announced on Monday 200 new COVID-19 cases in the country, bringing the cumulative total to 6,459.

The DOH also recorded 41 patients who recuperated from the disease, raising the total recoveries to 613.

Meanwhile, the death toll is up by 19 to 428.

“Kasama po sa mga naitalang naka-recover ay ang mga pasyenteng na-confine, at mga pasyenteng may mga positive mild and asymptomatic cases na naka-recover na mula sa kanilang self-isolation at home quarantine,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said during a DOH briefing.

(Included in the tally of recoveries are patients who were confined, and patients who were positive but were considered mild and asymptomatic cases and have recovered from their self-isolation and home quarantine.)

Starting last week, the number of recoveries recorded daily has been higher than those who died from the disease.

The DOH attributed this to its inclusion of home-quarantined patients in the tally of recoveries. Those who were asked to go on self-isolation had to undergo another 14 days of quarantine before taking a repeat PCR test for the disease.

The DOH had said that only those with negative test results are included in the count of recoveries.

According to the ABS-CBN Data Analytics team, from April 11 to 20, the fewest number of reported cases happened in the last two days — 172 new cases on Sunday and 200 cases on Monday.

Based on the DOH’s COVID-19 tracker website, 52,837 unique individuals have so far been tested by the country’s certified laboratories as of Saturday.

Of those, 7,166 tests turned out positive. The DOH explained last week that the number of positive individuals may be lower than the actual number of reported cases because other results still undergo “validation and processing.”

Vergeire said the DOH continues its two-pronged strategy of preventing more cases and early management of confirmed cases.

She reminded the public to take care of their health and to go to a hospital if they feel the need to, especially since PhilHealth will be covering the medical expenses of COVID-19 cases.

As of Monday, some 2.4 million people across the world have acquired the COVID-19, according to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus dashboard. Of this number, more than 628,000 have recovered and more than 165,000 have died.