WITH recoveries mostly exceeding new infections in a day, the number of active coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) cases in the Philippines fell below 60,000 on Monday, May 10, 2021.

The Department of Health (DOH) listed 59,897 active cases on Monday, the lowest since the 57,736 on March 16, 2021, as the 8,193 recoveries were higher than the 6,846 new infections.

The new infections brought the cumulative case count in the country to 1,108,826 as of Monday.

There were 90 additional mortalities, raising the Covid-19 death toll to 18,562. The case fatality rate swung back to 1.67 percent.

The daily positivity rate remained at 13.9 percent out of 45,370 samples tested on May 8.

The 8,193 additional recoveries on Monday increased the total to 1,030,367. Nearly a third of these, or 325,503, were declared as recoveries only in the last three weeks.

Under DOH’s time-based recovery methodology, mild and asymptomatic cases without symptoms for at least 10 consecutive days are declared as recoveries.

Since April 18, DOH has been employing this methodology daily. A total of 325,503 cases were declared as recoveries from April 18 to May 10, 2021.

A number of these recoveries, however, were later verified to be deaths and reclassified as such. (Marites Villamor-Ilano / SunStar Philippines)