Philippines confirms more than 14,000 COVID-19 cases for 2nd straight day

MANILA (UPDATE) - The Philippines confirmed 14,749 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday bringing the country’s total to 1,741,616. 

This was again the second-highest number of cases reported. It was also the fifth straight day that over 12,000 cases were confirmed--the first time this has happened in the course of the pandemic.

The highest number of cases logged was 15,310 on April 2 this year, but the DOH said this was after more than 3,700 cases were added to the tally from “backlogs.”

The DOH meanwhile also reported 10,720 new recoveries, pushing the total number of Filipinos who recovered from the disease to 1,608,528. 

This means that the country has a total of 102,748 active cases as of 4 p.m. Sunday. 

Two hundred seventy more deaths were reported from COVID-19 on Sunday, bringing the disease’s death toll in the Philippines to 30,340. 

The DOH said 59,857 tests were conducted on Aug. 13, of which 23.5 percent turned out positive. 

The arrival in the country of the more contagious Delta variant of the virus that causes COVID-19, has caused worries among experts. 

But on Sunday, the DOH also confirmed the presence in the Philippines of the Lambda variant, which researchers say is highly infectious and more resistant to vaccines than the original version of the virus.

Meanwhile, the country struggles to ramp up its vaccine rollout. The government has said that it wants to inoculate 58 million Filipinos by the end of the year, down from an initial 70 million target.

ABS-CBN News however has been tracking the number of vaccinations since March, and as of Aug. 11, only 12,027,383 Filipinos have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. This means that the government has reached just 16.98 percent of the revised target after more than 5 months. 

• Philippines: COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker

The government has put the most economically productive region of the country, NCR, under the strictest of four lockdown levels from Aug. 6 to 20 to check the possible spread of the Delta variant. 

After plunging into its worst economic contraction since World War, the country emerged from recession in the second quarter.

• Dissecting Data: Economy sheds over P2 trillion in 15 months as quarantines bite

Worldwide, the novel coronavirus has infected over 206.7 million people and caused over 4.35 million deaths since it was first reported in Wuhan, China in late 2019 according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

The United States remains the most badly affected country with over 36.6 million infections and over 621,000 deaths.

India is the second most badly affected country, with 32 million infections. But in terms of deaths, Brazil has recorded more fatalities than India, with the South American country reporting over 568,000 COVID-19 deaths against India’s 431,000 confirmed fatalities. 

The country’s first COVID-19 case was a 38-year-old Chinese woman from Wuhan, China.

The first COVID-19 death outside of China, was also recorded in the Philippines last year.