The Philippine National Police also listed one more infection and another recovery among its ranks. There are now a total of 415 police personnel who have contracted the virus, with 241 recovered patients and seven deaths.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 15) — The Department of Health on Monday added 490 new cases to the country’s coronavirus tally which rose to 26,420.
The DOH said 348 are “fresh cases” or were validated in the last three days, while 142 are “late cases” or were part of the agency’s backlog.
It added that the fresh cases are based on the daily reports submitted by only 38 out of 58 currently operational labs.
Another 298 patients have, meanwhile, survived the disease, as recoveries reached 6,252. These latest figures show around 23 percent of those infected have already beaten the virus.
Ten new deaths were also recorded, with the death toll now at 1,098.
Of the newly reported fatalities, three died on June 1, and one on June 11, according to the DOH. Meanwhile, the remaining six died in the past months but were only recently reported.
The latest bulletin also showed that Metro Manila reported the highest number of new cases with 152, while Central Visayas logged 84.
Amid concerns that the country continues to register high number of cases, Dr. Emmanuel Baja of the University of the Philippines COVID-19 Pandemic Response Team noted that cases are significantly lower than the team’s initial projections before lockdown restrictions were imposed.
“Bago mag ECQ (enhanced community quarantine) ang ating pamahalaan, ang projected na bilang ng COVID-19 cases ayon sa pag-aaral ng aming team ay maaaring umabot sana ng 80,00 sa loob lamang ng isang araw,” Baja said in DOH’s Monday briefing.
[Translation: Before our government imposed an enhanced community quarantine, our team’s projected number of increase in COVID-19 cases can reach up to 80,000 in just one day.]
To date, the highest single-day increase in cases recorded in the country is at 1,046 new infections on May 29.
Baja also noted the downward trend in the COVID-19 case fatality rate, and attributed it to the improved capability of medical frontliners to cater to infected patients.
The Department of Foreign Affairs, meanwhile, recorded 25 new infections among Filipinos abroad, pushing the infected tally to 5,566.
Six new COVID-19 survivors and 17 more deaths have also been listed by the agency. These brought the total recoveries to 2,497 and the death toll to 426.
Worldwide, the virus has infected more than 7.9 million people. Of this number, over 433,000 resulted in death, while nearly 3.8 million have already recovered.
