AFTER five days of recording less than 3,000 new cases of coronavirus infection in a day, the Department of Health (DOH) reported more than 3,000 cases on Sunday, October 4, 2020.
As of 4 p.m. Sunday, a day before the opening of classes for school year 2020-2021, the total case count in the country stood at 322,497, including 3,190 newly confirmed cases.
The agency also reported 100 additional mortalities, the highest daily death toll in the last 15 days.
Of the 100 new deaths, 16 occurred in October, 57 in September, 11 in August, 12 in July, three in June and one in May.
These newly confirmed mortalities raised the total death toll nationwide from the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) to 5,776, or around 1.8 percent of the country’s total caseload.
The DOH also announced 18,065 recoveries, mostly due to its time-based tagging methodology which allows the agency to declare virus-positive persons with mild or no symptoms as recoveries after more than 14 days without any symptoms.
The total number of recoveries as of Sunday was 273,079, or nearly 85 percent of those who contracted Sars-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
Of these new cases, 2,709 occurred in the last two weeks from September 21 to October 4.
The National Capital Region (NCR), which is the biggest region with a population of over 12 million, recorded the highest number of new cases at 1,279, followed by Rizal with 212, Laguna with 147, Cavite with 146 and Bulacan with 122.
Of the 100 deaths, 36 were from the NCR, 28 from Calabarzon, nine from Western Visayas, seven from Central Visayas, five from Bicol, three from Central Luzon, and two each from Eastern Visayas, Davao and Caraga.
Ilocos, Northern Mindanao, Soccsksargen, Mimaropa and Cordillera regions each reported one new mortality.
The DOH said 19 cases previously tagged as recovered were reclassified as deaths after final validation while 23 duplicates were removed from the total case count. (Marites Villamor-Ilano/SunStar Philippines)