(Eagle News) — The number of coronavirus disease 2019 cases in the Philippine National Police has reached 2151.
The PNP said of these confirmed cases as of Friday night, 823 have recovered.
Eleven have died so far.
Suspect cases are at 2521, while probable cases have reached 850.
The Department of Health earlier said the guidelines for the time-based determination of whether or not mild and asymptomatic cases have recovered have been approved by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases.
The newly-approved guidelines are based on World Health Organization guidelines that state mild and asymptomatic COVID-19 patients do not need to be tested again for them to be deemed recovered.
This is because studies have shown patients who fall into these categories are no longer infectious after a specific period of time.
The implementation of the new criteria would also allow health facilities to better recover.
According to the WHO, symptomatic patients (mild) may be released from isolation 10 days after the symptom onset, plus three additional days without symptoms (including without fever and without respiratory symptoms).
Asymptomatic cases may be released 10 days after the positive test for SARS-CoV-2.
In the Philippines, even without the retesting, the IATF requires, however, the go-signal of a doctor before mild and asymptomatic COVID-19 patients are discharged from isolation.
The implementation of the newly-approved IATF guidelines based on the WHO guidelines in the Philippines has led the Department of Health to report a record-high 38,000 recoveries in a single day, on July 30.
