COVID-19 cases in PH breach 70,000-mark with nearly 2,000 new cases recorded

MANILA — The total number of people in the Philippines infected with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has reached 70,764, according to the Department of Health.

Based on data from 73 out of 89 COVID-19 labs, an additional 1,951 cases was added on Tuesday, bringing the total number of active cases or those who have yet to recover to 45,646.

This is the 8th highest number of additional cases reported in a single day, according to the ABS-CBN Investigative and Research Group.

Majority or 1,464 of the additional cases are from the National Capital Region, 90 from Cebu province, 74 from Laguna, 53 from Cavite and 36 from Rizal.

This is the 6th straight day that NCR logged more than 1,000 additional COVID-19 cases, according to the ABS-CBN Data Analytics Team.

LOOK: More than 1,000 cases reported in NCR the past five days

July 16 - 1871 of 2474 (76% of the cases that day)

July 17 - 1076 of 1765 (61%)

July 18 - 1799 of 2327 (77%)

July 19 - 1622 of 2235 (73%)

July 20 - 1237 of 1521 (81%) pic.twitter.com/GcaSeQwIRP

— Edson (@EdsonCGuido) July 21, 2020

The DOH also reported 209 additional recovered patients, bringing the total number of recoveries to 23,281.

There were also 2 additional COVID-related deaths — the lowest since March 24 — or a total of 1,837 fatalities.

“Of the 2 deaths, 1 (50%) in July and 1 (50%) in June. Deaths were from Region 7 (1 or 50%) and Region 6 (1 or 50%),” the DOH said in an advisory.

Of the active cases, 91.1% have mild symptoms, 8% are asymptomatic, 0.4% have severe symptoms and 0.5% are in critical condition. 

The DOH said 85 duplicate cases were removed from the previous total case count. 

“These numbers undergo constant cleaning and validation,” it added.

Researchers from the University of the Philippines earlier projected that the country would reach 60,000 total cases by the end of July but when that number was reached mid-month, they raised their projection to 85,000, based on current trends.

Since the start of the pandemic, there have been 14.7 million people around the world infected with COVID-19, according to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus dashboard. Almost 8.3 million of those have already recovered while 609,000 have died.