MANILA, Philippines – The number of coronavirus-infected patients in the country has swelled by 1,046 cases on Friday — although the Department of Health (DOH) insists that only 46 of them were what it called “fresh cases.”
According to the latest DOH data, there were now 16,634 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Philippines, but 1,000 of the new data reported Friday were old cases, or test results dated more than four days ago but were only recently confirmed by the epidemiology bureau.
As of now, another 21 patients have died bringing the total to 942 deaths, while 122 recoveries brought the total at 3,720.
Earlier, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire announced that they would be changing the way they would present COVID-19 numbers, separating data on newly-recorded patients and the backlog, to avoid impressions that infection rates are on the rise again.
This happened after government critics slammed the decision to downgrade quarantine measures despite the supposed highest single-day jump of cases on Thursday since COVID-19 reached the Philippines shores.
Vergeire clarified that only 109 of the record-high 539 COVID-19 cases recorded on Thursday were fresh cases, while the rest of the patients were part of the case backlog.
Due to the changes, the presentation of the new bulletin took some time, deriving from the usual afternoon updates from DOH.