Only 4 PHL provinces Covid-free

FROM 41 provinces in May, the Department of Health (DOH) reported on Wednesday that there are only four remaining provinces with no Covid-19 cases in the country. Dr. Beverly Lorraine Ho, director of the DOH Health Promotion and Communication Service, said that as of July 21, Batanes, Quirino, Aurora and Dinagat Island are still Covid-free. Ho said that one of the factors for why these provinces still have no recorded infections is that they are “isolated”. “Bukod sa isolated dahil ang iba sa mga probinsiyang ito ay isla. Ipinagmamalaki po namin ang balitang ito at inaanyayahan na ipagpatuloy ang measure na kanilang nasimulan to make sure that wala silang Covid-19 [Besides being isolated, some of them are islands. We are proud of this fact and encourage them to keep doing what they did to ensure they don’t have infections]," Ho said. She said the local government units in these provinces are “very active in terms of screening people.” Meanwhile, as of 4 p.m. of July 22, the DOH recorded 1,594 confirmed cases, bringing the total number of Covid-19 cases to 72,269. The additional cases were reported based on the total tests done by 78 out of 89 current operational laboratories. There were 342 recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 23,623. Six deaths were recorded, of which 5 (83 percent) occurred in July and 1 (17 percent) in June. Deaths were from the National Capital Region (2 or 33 percent), Region 6 (2 or 33 percent), Region 7 (1 or 17 percent), and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (1 or 17 percent). Eighty-nine duplicates were removed from total case count. These numbers undergo constant cleaning and validation.