COVID-19 recoveries top 4,000 as cases reach almost 19,000

Courtesy DOH

(Eagle News) – The number of COVID-cases in the country reached close to 19,000 as the number of recoveries surpassed 4,000 as of Tuesday, June 2, the Department of Health said.

In its regular virtual presser, the DOH said that the total number of cases reached 18,997 as of 4 p.m. These 18,997 cases are all validated: 176 of which are fresh or new cases, while 183 are “late cases” from test results which were already more than four days ago, but were not immediately sent to the DOH.

The number of new recoveries reported on Tuesday were 84, which were higher than the 70 reported yesterday, Monday, June 1.

There were also six new deaths reported on Tuesday, higher than the three reported yesterday. This brought to 966 the total COVID-19 related deaths in the country.

-3 deaths reported on June 1, the least number of deaths reported since March-

Incidentally, the DOH said that the three reported deaths on Monday, were the least number of deaths reported in a day since March.

Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that this is a good development, stressing the decreasing number of deaths due to COVID-19 in the past few weeks.

The DOH earlier noted that deaths due to the virus have been steadily declining since end of March.

The department also noted the longer doubling time of COVID-19 cases, citing a report by public health epidemiologist Dr. Troy Gepte.

Vergeire, on Tuesday, also noted that there were more laboratories which were able to submit accomplishment reports on COVID-19 cases.  As of June 1, Monday, 38 out of the certified COVID-19 labs in the country had submitted their reports, while the remaining four were given until Thursday to submit their accomplishment report.

As more COVID-19 labs give updated reports, the reporting of late cases would be minimized, the DOH official said.

The department said that it could soon finish its backlog, and will be training laboratories to use the automated reporting system through the “COVID-Kaya” app.  With this, there would be real-time reporting of COVID-19 cases, Vergeire said.

(Eagle News Service)