Highest single-day tally of recoveries also recorded

MANILA — The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Philippines has gone up to 10,343, according to the Department of Health on Thursday.

The DOH bulletin recorded 339 new COVID-19 cases and 27 new COVID-related deaths.

It also reported 112 new recovered patients, the highest reported in a single day.

The total number of recoveries rose to 1,618, and the total number of fatalities, 685.

Majority of the new cases were from Region 7 (Central Visayas), with 205 or 61 percent, followed by National Capital Region with 110 or 32 percent.

Other regions, meanwhile, reported 24 new cases.

The 205 new cases from Region 7, which includes Cebu, is the highest reported in a day for the said region.

Thursday’s new cases tally is the highest since April 6 when the DOH reported 414 new COVID-19 cases. It is also higher than Wednesday’s tally of 320 new cases, most of which were from the NCR.

• READ: Philippines COVID-19 tally breaches 10,000-mark

Despite the surge in cases in Region 7, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire reiterated that the Philippines has started to “flatten the curve” or slow down the spread of the COVID-19 virus in the country.

“Dahil sa maagap nating pagtugon, naiwasan natin ang nangyari sa ibang bansa kung saan nabigla na lamang sila na malawak na pala ang kaso ng transmission o haw- hawaan sa kanilang komunidad,” she said, explaining that the lockdown, testing and isolation of cases have greatly helped the health sector.

(Because of our quick response, we were able to avoid what happened in other countries where they were surprised with the large cases of transmission in their communities.)

Vergeire said that while new cases are still being reported, the number is not as high as in other countries.

“Ang ating case fatality rate or CFR sa kasalukuyan ay 6.6 percent. At nakakakita tayo ng malaking pagbaba at pagbagal ng mga naitatalang bagong kaso at pagkakamatay,” she added.

(Our case fatality rate or CFR is at 6.6 percent. And we are seeing the substantial decrease and slowing down of recorded cases and deaths.)

Vergeire pointed out that the worldwide case fatality rate as of May 6 was at 6.9%.

“Among our ASEAN neighbors, Indonesia has a CFR of 7.22 percent, while Malaysia and Thailand have rates of 1.67 percent and 1.84 percent respectively. Many factors may contribute to this disparity, for example demographics and health system capacity,” she explained in a statement.

The health official assured the public that the DOH is hiring more health workers to man health facilities and laboratories as they target higher testing capacity.

“With regard to the capacity of our health facilities, as of latest available data, 58.2 percent of ICU beds, 57.1 percent isolation beds, 63.9 percent of beds in COVID wards, and 77 percent of mechanical ventilators across the Philippines are currently vacant and available for use by COVID and non-COVID patients alike,” she said.

Worldwide, some 3.7 million people have been infected with COVID-19, based on the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus dashboard. Of those, 1.2 million have recovered and more than 260,000 have died.