Coronavirus Illustration | Stock Photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Four hundred forty three of the 943 new coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases the country logged on Saturday, June 20 came from Central Visayas, the report from the Department of Health (DOH) showed.
In their latest COVID-19 bulletin, the country’s health department said that they had already documented a total of 29,400 COVID-19 cases in the Philippines.
Of the 943 recorded on Saturday, around 46 percent came from Central Visayas. From these figures, 296 are considered as ‘fresh cases’ while 147 are tagged as ‘late cases’.
Fresh COVID-19 cases
Fresh cases refer to swab test results produced within the last three days while late ones are those which have been released to the patient four days ago and beyond.
The National Capital Region (NCR), the hotspot of the COVID-19 outbreak in the Philippines, only recorded a total of 278 fresh and late COVID-19 cases on Saturday.
Data from DOH also showed that the death toll nationwide has risen to 1,150 while recoveries have already reached 7,650.
In their report, DOH also noted ‘a peak’ in COVID-19-related deaths in the middle of June.
“The trend for mortality at the national continues to decrease. However, we saw peaks in deaths in the middle of June. Of the 194 deaths on June, 23 (or 12 percent of it) were from Cebu,” said DOH.
Local data
Reports from various local governments in Cebu island, on the other hand, showed that the number of COVID-19 deaths here stood at 157.
Read more: Cebu City logs 126 new cases, 9 deaths on June 20
Seventy three out of the 157 reported coronavirus mortalities are from Cebu City, the epicenter of the outbreak in Central Visayas, while 53 are from different parts of Cebu province.
The island’s two other independent cities — Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu — also recorded 15 and 16 COVID-19 deaths respectively.
The national government will be intervening to evaluate how local governments here, particularly Cebu City, are addressing the COVID-19 situation. /dbs
Read more: National gov’t steps in to evaluate Cebu City’s COVID response