The Department of Health (DOH) announced 1,046 more cases on Friday, May 29, which brings up the total of coronavirus cases in the country to 16,634.
Of these 1,046 cases reported on Friday, the DOH said 46 are “fresh cases” while 1,000 are “late cases.”
“Fresh cases” are test results released to the patient within the last 3 days, while “late cases” are test results released more than 4 days ago. This is the first time since March that the DOH used these terms to distinguish new cases from backlog.
The DOH also announced 21 more people who succumbed to the disease, bringing the death toll to 942.
Meanwhile, 122 more individuals recovered from the virus. The number of total recoveries is now at 3,720. On the other side, 21 more people have died because of the virus, bringing the death toll now to 942.
he government attributed the spike to its continued effort to clear its testing backlog.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire explained in a news briefing on Friday that the DOH will start identifying the number of “fresh” or new cases, as well as those that came from the testing backlog.
She also said that 430 of the 539 new cases from Thursday’s tally were reported late to the DOH Epidemiology Bureau. There were only 109 fresh cases, Vergeire added.
On Thursday, May 28, President Rodrigo Duterte declared that Metro Manila would shift to general community quarantine starting June 1. Davao City, 3 other regions in Luzon, Pangasinan, and Albay will also be under general community quarantine, while the rest of the country will be under the more relaxed modified GCQ.
