PH virus tally breaches 467,000 with over 1,800 new cases

MANILA - The Philippines confirmed 1,885 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, bringing the country’s total to 467,601.

The Department of Health also reported 307 new recoveries, pushing the total number of Filipinos who recovered from the disease to 430,791.

Seven more deaths were reported from the illness, bringing COVID-19’s death toll in the Philippines to 9,062.

This meant that the country has a total of 27,748 active cases as of 4 p.m. Friday.

Quezon City reported the most new confirmed cases at 130. Bulacan province came next with 122 new infections, while Davao City had 99, Rizal province had 78, and Leyte province had 63.

A new strain of the novel coronavirus, which was first reported in the United Kingdom, has been spreading globally, with Singapore confirming its first case of the variant on Dec. 24.

Malacaang said President Rodrigo Duterte has cut short his Christmas break to meet with cabinet members to discuss measures to stop the new COVID-19 virus strain from entering the Philippines.

The government has said it is eyeing to use 4 COVID-19 vaccines from Russia and China by the first 3 months of 2021, even as the country has yet to receive emergency vaccine use applications for the drug.

The COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer, Covax, Johnson & Johnson, Novavax and Moderna are set to arrive in the third quarter, Malacanang had said.

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

Worldwide, the novel coronavirus has infected over 79.39 million people and caused nearly 1.74 million deaths since it first emerged in Wuhan in late 2019, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

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The United States remains the most badly affected country with over 18.65 million infections and over 329,000 deaths.

India follows the US with over 10.14 million infections. Brazil ranks third with over 7.42 million infections but is second in terms of deaths with over 189,000 COVID-19 fatalities.