MANILA — Philippines has 380 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), bringing the total tally to 15,049 on Wednesday, as authorities discussed whether to ease or extend lockdown measures by the end of the week.

The new cases reported Wednesday was the highest number of new cases in 51 days, or since the 414 new cases reported on April 6. It is also the 4th highest number of new cases reported since the start of the outbreak.

There are however 94 new recovered patients, the highest in 8 days, or a total of 3,506 recoveries, the Department of Health (DOH) reported.

Meanwhile, there were 18 new deaths recorded on Wednesday or a total of 904 fatalities. This is the highest number of new deaths in 13 days.

Of the 380 new cases, majority came from the National Capital Region (254 cases) followed by Filipino repatriates with 34 cases. This was the same trend observed the day before. Only 2 came from Region 7 and the rest are from other regions.

Metro Manila, large parts of Central Luzon and Laguna province are under modified enhanced community quarantine until May 31, in a bid to slow down the spread of the respiratory disease. Meanwhile, Cebu City and its neighboring city of Mandaue remains under ECQ.

LOOK: Confirmed COVID-19 cases in NCR

NCR accounted for 254 of the 380 reported cases today. Yesterday's 247 was the highest since April 6.

Cases from NCR played a role in the surge in new cases the past 2 days. Again, this is likely DOH addressing backlogs in case validation. https://t.co/hs7jlSglLB pic.twitter.com/rEs2zSxJEL

— Edson (@EdsonCGuido) May 27, 2020

While the country is still trying to ramp up its testing capacity, it has faced various challenges, including low levels of actual testing and delays in validation.

• READ: COVID-19 testing drops below 6,000 daily, labs ordered to operate 7 days a week

This has led some to question if the country has really flattened the curve since the number of confirmed cases might only be reflective of the DOH’s validation capacity.

As of May 25, the number of individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 was already over 21,000 but thousands have yet to be validated, hence the lower number of confirmed cases.

Worldwide, COVID-19 has infected almost 5.6 million people, based on the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus dashboard. Of those, 350,000 have died but almost 2.3 million have already recovered.