MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines’ confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases climbed to 38,805 on Thursday as the Department of Health (DOH) recorded 294 new infections.
Of the new cases, 52 are “fresh” or those detected in the last three days, while 242 are “late” cases or were part of the DOH’s validation backlog.
Thursday’s new cases are significantly fewer compared to the last three days where the DOH logged around a thousand new infections.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire explained that this is because the agency decided to extract the data from its Epidemiology Bureau earlier from the usual.
“Mula sa dating 24 hours ay 19 hours worth of data laman ang mga numero natin ngayon,” Vergeire said, adding that the change is only temporary and is meant to give the agency more time to analyze the data.
Total recoveries reached 10,673 after the DOH listed another 235 recovered patients. However, 4 more lost their lives to the respiratory disease, pushing the nationwide death count to 1,274.
Metro Manila—the epicenter of the contagion in the country— accounted for 60 of the new infections.
Meanwhile, there were no new cases recorded in Central Visayas. The region includes Cebu City, the only area in the Philippines currently under the most stringent lockdown classification due to high transmission rate, and the increasing demand for critical care.
Other regions across the country accounted for a total of 189 new infections while the remaining 45 are cases from repatriates.
COVID-19, which was first detected in Hubei, China late last year, has already infected over 10.6 million people worldwide, killing over 516,000.