The Department of Health (DOH) reported on Friday that the Philippines’ total number of COVID-19 cases reached 40,336 after 1,531 more cases were recorded.
Of these new cases of infection, 688 are considered “fresh”, while 843 are reported “late.”
The DOH also announced 400 new recoveries, bringing to 11,073 the total number of COVID-19 survivors in the country.
Meanwhile, the death toll due to the virus increased to 1,280 with six new fatalities.
As of June 30, the Philippines has 67 accreditted COVID-19 testing laboratories which have tested 681,667 individuals.
DOH data on July 1 showed that 481 or 36.32 percent of ICU beds and 3,805 or 40.78 percent of isolation beds are occupied nationwide, and 449 or 22.45 percent of mechanical ventilators in the country are in use.
While NCR is still the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the country, Region 7’s Cebu province and Cebu City have been identified as hotspots.
Because of this, Cebu City remains under a strict enhanced community quarantine.
Researchers from the University of the Philippines earlier estimated that the Philippines may reach 40,000 COVID-19 cases by June 30.
When June 30 came and the country’s cases did not reach this number, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque called it a victory.
However, people pointed out that there were more than 40,000 people who had actually tested positive for COVID-19 and are just awaiting validation from the DOH.
The same UP group that made the projection is now estimating that cases may go up to 60,000 by the end of July.
Data extraction and analysis time is back to 24 hours. Last Thursday’s was shortened as DOH had to shift to a new data extraction system to better accommodate better data submission from the reporting units, the health department also said./Stacy Ang
