FRESH coronavirus infections continued to accelerate Tuesday, June 2, while deaths remained in single-digit territory, indicating that management of patients have improved, the Department of Health (DOH) said.
As of 4 p.m. Tuesday, the DOH reported 359 new cases of coronavirus disease (Covid-19), which brought the total count in the country to 18,997.
Of the 359 cases, 176 are considered fresh while 183 are late cases.
Fresh cases refer to those validated test results that were released in the last three days while late cases refer to test results released at least four days ago but reported to the DOH epidemiology bureau only in the last 24 hours.
Tuesday's fresh cases are almost 50 percent more than Monday's 119 fresh cases.
These fresh cases provide a clearer picture of the rate of infection in the country.
The DOH also reported six deaths in the last 24 hours, raising the death toll to 966.
This is the fourth consecutive day of single-digit mortalities, ranging from 3 to 8. The three mortalities reported on Monday, June 1, was the lowest in about two months.
DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, in the agency’s regular virtual press briefing Tuesday, presented a graph showing that deaths have been declining.
From an average of 25.3 per day in early April, deaths went down to an average of 1.6 per day as of end-May.
“Ang ibig pong sabihin nito (ay) mas mahusay na po ang pagma-manage natin ng mga pasyente kaya mas nakaka-recover na po sila,” Vergeire said.
Recoveries increased to 4,063, with 84 reported Tuesday.
Of the total, 13,699 are active cases, broken down as follows: 795 asymptomatic, 12,826 with mild symptoms, 59 with severe symptoms, and 19 in critical condition.
Globally, more than six million people have been infected by the novel coronavirus, or Sars-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19.
The disease has killed 371,166 people as of June 1, 2020, the World Health Organization reported. (Marites Villamor-Ilano/SunStar Philippines)