NCR still COVID-19 epicenter with 1,084 new cases; PH total at 316, 678

ABS-CBN News

The National Capital Region remained the epicenter of the Philippines’ coronavirus crisis with 1,084 new cases reported Friday. 

This is among 2,611 additional cases confirmed in the Department of Health’s latest bulletin, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 316,678. 

This is the fourth straight day the country recorded less than 3,000 new cases, according to ABS-CBN Data Analytics. 

There were 416 new recoveries recorded, bringing the total tally to 254,617, DOH said.

Region 4A and Region 6, meanwhile, recorded most new cases after NCR, with 400 and 255, respectively. 

Active cases reached 56,445, where the majority of the patients, or 87% are experiencing mild symptoms, according to the DOH. 

There were 56 deaths reported Friday, 43 of which occurred in September (77%), 6 in August (11%), 5 in July (9%), 1 in May (2%) and 1 in April (2%), DOH added. Most of the deaths were from Metro Manila.

The DOH also reported that “13 cases previously tagged as recovered were reclassified to deaths after final validation.”

“In addition, there’s a death found to be negative and was removed from the total case count after final validation,” it added. 

At least 7 laboratories failed to submit their data to the COVID-19 Data Repository System (CDRS) on October 1, added DOH. 

The University of the Philippines OCTA Research Group estimates total cases in the country to reach 380,000 to 410,000 by the end of October.

As of Friday, there are more than 34 million people infected with COVID-19 globally, according to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus dashboard. Of those, more than 1 million have died and almost 24 million have recovered.