PH COVID-19 tally breaches 400,000 after logging 1,672 new cases

MANILA — The Philippines’ total COVID-19 cases on Wednesday breached the 400,000-mark after the health department confirmed 1,672 new cases, official data showed.

The country's total infections climbed to 401,416, of which, 31,489 or 7.8 percent are active cases. The Philippines recorded its first confirmed COVID-19 case last Jan. 30 in a Chinese woman who arrived from Wuhan City, China where the disease is believed to have originated.

The new cases for the day, however, do not include data from 8 accredited laboratories that failed to submit data on time, according to the Department of Health’s (DOH) latest bulletin. 

For the second-straight day, the province of Cavite led areas in the country that recorded the highest daily additional cases with 100, followed by Davao City with 99, Quezon City with 81, Batangas with 78, and Baguio City with 70 confirmed infections.

Cases of recoveries jumped by 311 over the previous day. The total number of recovered patients stood at 362,217, accounting for 90.2 percent of the total recorded cases.

The disease-causing virus has claimed 49 more lives in the country, raising the death toll to 7,710. 

The DOH said that majority or 92.8 percent of the active cases are asymptomatic or exhibiting mild symptoms.

Of the 20,047 people who were tested as of Tuesday noon, 1,168 or 5.8 percent, tested positive for the disease, the DOH noted.

A total of 5 duplicates were removed from the total tally, according to the health department. Of these, 3 were tagged as recovered cases.

Meanwhile, 10 cases initially tagged as recoveries were found to be deaths after validation.

The Philippines is 25th in the list of countries with the highest number of COVID-19 cases, according to the running tally from the US-based Johns Hopkins University (JHU).

More than 51 million worldwide have already contracted COVID-19, of whom, almost 1.3 million have died while more than 33 million have recovered, according to the JHU coronavirus dashboard.