MANILA — The number of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases in the Philippines has breached the 12,000-mark on Friday.

The Department of Health reported 215 new cases, bringing the total number of COVID-19 cases to 12,091, which is tallied since the January.

Of the new cases, 144 or 67% came from the National Capital Region and only 2 or 1% came from Region 7. A total of 69 new cases or 32% came from other regions.

Region 7 briefly recorded the highest number of new COVID-19 cases last week because of the spread of the disease in jails.

• READ: PH logs 339 new COVID-19 cases, more than half from Reg. 7

The DOH also reported 123 new recovered patients, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,460.

Meanwhile, the number of COVID-related deaths was at 806 after the DOH recorded 16 new fatalities. The number of new fatalities is the lowest recorded since May 11.

On Thursday, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire attributed the continued increase in recoveries to the length of time it takes for hospitals to discharge COVID-19 patients.

“Average ngayon is 15 days sa isang pagkaka-ospital ng isang tao na may COVID-19,” Vergeire had said. “It might be na yung ating mga ipinasok na mga kaso since a month ago ngayon pumapasok lahat ay recovered.”

(The average number of days that a person with COVID-19 stays in a hospital is 15 days. It might be that the cases that were admitted a month are are now recovering.)

She said doctors have also learned how to better manage patients with the disease.

Worldwide, there have been 4.5 million people infected with COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, according to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus dashboard. Of those, 1.5 million have already recovered but more than 300,000 have died.