COVID-19 Death Toll in Philippines Breaches 1,000

Philippine health officials on Monday reported eight more deaths linked to the coronavirus, bringing the pandemic’s nationwide toll to 1,011, even as a government spokesman insisted that thousands of Filipinos had recovered from the disease.

The Department of Health (DOH) also confirmed 579 new COVID-19 cases. That took the overall number to 22,474 across the Philippines, a week after President Rodrigo Duterte allowed a partial easing of quarantine measures to induce economic growth in the wake of a 77-day lockdown, which caused massive job losses.

While the figures showed an upward trajectory, presidential spokesman Harry Roque said government doctors had also reported thousands of recoveries to date. On Monday alone, 107 people had recovered, bringing the total number of recoveries from COVID-19 to 4,637, according to the health department.

“The number of those recovering are going up,” Roque said. “So as you can see in the figures in the data of cases, it is very clear that we are seeing a downward trend.”

“But we still need to be careful, because that number could spike all of a sudden if social distancing rules and wearing of masks are not followed,” he added.

The hundreds of Filipinos who have died so far from the disease include doctors, former government officials, foreign affairs experts, children, prisoners and detainees, government officials said.

A glance at new cases reported every day by the health department since June 1, however, shows that “fresh cases” have not been steadily decreasing, according to a review done by BenarNews.

The daily breakdown of new daily cases recorded from June 1 through June 8 was as follows: 119, 176, 221, 313, 168, 350, 378, and 579.

Maria Rosario Vergeire, a spokesman for the DOH, had earlier attributed the rising number of cases to the country’s improved testing capacity.

However, less than 1 percent of the estimated population of 106 million has been tested for the virus to date, according to information from the department. As of June 6, close to 396,000 individuals in the Philippines had been tested, data on the department’s website showed.

Worldwide more than 7 million people have been infected by COVID-19 with deaths surpassing 400,000 as of Monday, according to data gathered by disease experts at U.S.-based John Hopkins University.