THE Department of Health (DOH) on Tuesday, July 7, 2020, reported an additional 1,540 cases of coronavirus infection, bringing the total case count in the Philippines to 47,873.
DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire attributed the continued rise in cases to an increase in testing and poor implementation of minimum health standards that has led to community transmission of the Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
She said the country is not experiencing a second wave of infections.
“The increase has been gradual and our health system is able to cope with the increasing number of cases. This is reflected in our indicators. As of July 5, our case doubling time is still at 7.9 days,” she said.
Of the total cases, 34,178 are active cases. Of the new cases, 993 are fresh cases while 547 are late cases.
The agency also reported an additional 201 patients who have recovered, bringing the total recoveries to 12,386, and six more mortalities, raising the death toll to 1,309.
Vergeire said the continued increase in the Covid-19 tally is due to clustering of cases in barangays in the National Capital Region and Cebu as well as in workplaces in the capital region, such as the Metro Rail Transit Line 3.
As of Tuesday, 198 MRT-3 personnel have been found positive for Sars-CoV-2, including 15 ticket sellers assigned at the North Avenue, Quezon Avenue, GMA-Kamuning and Cubao stations.
Read: Ticket sellers among infected MRT-3 staff
“Due to this, the DOH together with the DILG and the concerned LGU (local government unit) has intensified contact tracing efforts and isolation protocols to contain the identified clusters,” Vergeire said.
Tuesday’s 1,540 cases are fewer than the 2,434 and 2,099 new cases listed on Sunday and Monday, respectively.
Among the regions, the NCR continued to record the highest number of cases.
Of the 993 fresh cases on Tuesday, 428 came from NCR, 109 from Central Visayas and 456 from other regions.
Of the 547 late cases, 191 came from NCR, 65 from Central Visayas and 291 from other regions.
Fresh cases refer to test results that came out in the last three days while late cases are those that were released more than three days ago but were validated by the Epidemiology Bureau only in the last 24 hours. (Marites Villamor-Ilano/SunStar Philippines)