The Department of Health  (DOH) has reported only 294 additional COVID-19 cases on Thursday because of a change in the data process.

This brings the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country to 38,805.

The DOH also reported 235 new recovered patients, or a total of 10,673 recoveries.

There were also 4 new COVID-related deaths, or a total of 1,274 fatalities.

The last time the country only had around 200 additional cases in a day was on June 5 when the DOH reported 244.

The DOH attributed the relatively fewer new cases recorded to a change in the “extraction time”, or the time at which the agency’s Epidemiology Bureau (EB) extracts the testing data from their system.

“Mula sa 24 hours, 19 hours worth of data lamang ang numero natin ngayon dahil nga po tayo ay nagbago ng proseso  (From 24 hours, the data we have now is only worth 19 hours because we changed our process.) ,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a televised briefing.

Vergeire said the temporary adjustment will give the epidemiology bureau more time to analyze the data.

“Umaasa tayo na mas maging malaman at timely ang pagbigay ng datos sa mga susunod na araw (We are hoping that the data we will be giving will be more substantial and timely in the coming days.),”  Vergeire said.

The DOH also said “today’s fresh cases are based on the daily accomplishment reports submitted by only 51 out of 72 current operational (testing) labs.”

Of the additional cases, 52 are “fresh cases” and 242 are “late cases.”

Fresh cases refer to those whose test results were released within the last 3 days, while late cases are those whose results were released four days ago or earlier.

Of the fresh cases, 10 are from the National Capital Region (NCR), 17 identified as repatriated Filipinos, and 25 tagged as “Others.”

Others may refer to cases from outside NCR and those without location data.

Of the late cases, 50 are from NCR, 164 are tagged as “Others”, and 28 are repatriates./Stacy Ang