DOH records 1,407 new COVID-19 cases; adds ‘moderate’ as new patient classification

MANILA (UPDATED) — The Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday reported 1,407 newly-confirmed COVID-19 cases, pushing the country’s total to 402,820. 

This is the 3rd straight day that the country’s new cases counted fewer than 2,000.

The new cases for the day, however, do not include data from 17 accredited laboratories that failed to submit data on time, according to the Department of Health’s (DOH) latest bulletin. 

Davao City led areas in the country that recorded the highest daily additional cases with 214, followed by Eastern Samar and Rizal with 75 infections each, Cavite with 64, and Quezon with 54.

This is the fourth day that the province of Cavitewas listed among areas in the country with high number of additional infections.

Cases of recoveries jumped by 211 over the previous day. The total number of recovered patients stood at 362,417, accounting for 90 percent of the total recorded cases.

The disease-causing virus has claimed 11 more lives in the country, raising the death toll to 7,721.

To date, the Philippines has 32,682 active infections, accounting for 8.1 percent of the cumulative total cases. The DOH said 92.4 percent of patients currently ill are asymptomatic or exhibiting mild symptoms.

Of the 23,797 people who were tested as of Wednesday noon, 1,501 or 6.3 percent, tested positive for the disease, the health department said.

Three duplicates were removed from the total tally, according to the health department. All were tagged as recovered cases.

Meanwhile, 8 cases initially tagged as recoveries were found to be deaths after validation.

‘Moderate’ as COVID-19 patient classification 

The DOH announced that starting Thursday, it would include "moderate" in the severity classification of COVID-19 patients in the Philippines to "ensure alignment with international definitions".

It said a patient with a "moderate" COVID-19 case shows clinical signs of non-severe pneumonia (cough, dyspnea or respiratory rate of 21-30 breaths/minute for adults, and cough or difficulty in breathing and fast breathing or chest indrawing for children). 

Moderate COVID-19 cases accounted for 0.10 percent of the active infections as of Thursday, according to DOH’s bulletin. 

“This reclassification shall streamline the triaging of patients — asymptomatic and mild COVID-19 cases will be isolated and managed in Temporary Treatment and Monitoring Facilities, while moderate, severe, and critical cases shall be admitted in hospitals,” said DOH. 

In early April, the DOH issued a new classification system for persons being checked for COVID-19 as it geared up for increased testing. 

Under Administrative Order No. 2020-0013, the DOH changed the classification to "suspect," "probable" and "confirmed," with the first two covering those previously tagged as persons under investigation. 

• ‘Suspect, probable, confirmed’: DOH shifts to new classification for patients screened for COVID-19

The Philippines is currently 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 52 million worldwide have already contracted COVID-19, of whom, almost 1.3 million have died while almost 34 million have recovered, according to the JHU coronavirus dashboard.