DOH REPORTS BIG JUMP IN RECOVERIES
The Department of Health (DOH) on Sunday reported that 40,397 more patients had recovered from COVID-19, the severe respiratory ailment caused by the new coronavirus.
The big jump in recoveries brought the total number of COVID-19 survivors in the country to 112,586.
According to Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, the steep rise is the result of the DOH’S “time-based” COVID-19 recovery strategy, under which asymptomatic patients and those with mild symptoms are tagged as recovered after completing 14 days of isolation, counted from the time they started to have symptoms or their samples are taken for testing.
Those patients are cleared without repeat
swab testing but after clinical assessment by physicians, Vergeire said.
Patients with weak immune systems and severe and critical COVID-19 cases are not covered by the strategy, she said.
The DOH said the World Health Organization and local medical groups such as the Philippine College of Physicians and Philippine Society for Microbiology and Infectious Diseases supported the strategy.
Critical measure “Recoveries are critical to the assessment of the effectiveness of our interventions,” Vergeire said.
The DOH also reported 3,420 additional coronavirus infections, bringing the national total to 161,253 cases, of which 46,002 were active.
Of the additional cases submitted by 99 of 105 accredited laboratories, 2,091 came from Metro Manila. Laguna had 263, Cavite 149, Batangas 137 and Rizal 106.
The DOH said 90.7 percent of the active cases were mild, 6.7 percent asymptomatic, 1.1 percent severe, and 1.5 percent critical.
The majority of the new cases, or 2,745, fell ill between Aug. 3 and 16.
The DOH also reported that 65 more patients had died, raising the death toll to 2,665.
Of the newly reported fatalities, 29 died this month, 29 in July, and seven in June.