Twenty thousand more patients have recovered from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), bringing the number of survivors to more than 229,000, while the death toll is now nearing 5,000, the Department of Health (DOH) announced on Sunday.
In its latest case bulletin, the DOH said that the nationwide tally of recovered patients now reached 229,865 with 20,021 new individuals who got better.
This huge increase in the recovery tally is part of the DOH time-based and symptoms-based Oplan Recovery program that is being reported every Sunday. Mild and asymptomatic patients are being tagged as recovered if they met the certain criteria and upon the assessment of their respective physicians.
Meanwhile, the DOH also announced that 3,311 more individuals have contracted COVID-19, taking the nationwide caseload to 286,743. The number of active cases or currently ill patients in the country is now at 51,894.
The DOH said 1,435 of the new cases were logged in Metro Manila, while the provinces of Negros Occidental had 261, Laguna had 231, Rizal had 204, and Cavire had 174 infections.
Deaths linked to the new coronavirus also jumped to 4,984 with 55 more deaths recorded by the DOH. Of the new deaths, 33 happened this month, 17 in August, and five in July.
“Twenty-nine duplicates were removed from the total case count. Of these, 14 recovered cases and one death have been removed. However, one case was reactivated after further validation,” the DOH noted, adding that the COVID-19 figures “undergo constant cleaning and validation.”
More than 30 million people across the globe have been diagnosed with COVID-19, which killed around 948,000, based on the World Health Organization (WHO) data.