By Analou De Vera
The Department of Health (DOH) announced that there have now been 18,086 confirmed cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the country.
An additional 862 cases were confirmed by the DOH as of 8:30 p.m. on Sunday (May 31).
Of the newly-reported cases, 16 are considered "fresh cases" while the remaining 846 are "late cases."
The DOH previously defined fresh cases as test results that came out and were validated by its Epidemiology Bureau in the last three days, while late cases are test results that came out four or more days ago but were only recently validated.
The case bulletin also showed that another seven patients have died, bringing the country’s death toll to 957.
So far, 3,909 patients in all have recovered as the DOH reported that 101 more patients survived the disease.
The spike in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases was due to the Health department’s effort to catch up with the validation of test results, explained Health Undersecretary Dr. Maria Rosario Vergeire on Saturday (May 30).
The Philippines ranked third with the most number of cases among the 10- member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), after Singapore and Indonesia.
Globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) said there have been 5,817,385 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 362,705 deaths.