The Philippine coronavirus caseload leaped past 78,000 on Saturday, July 25, as over 2,000 new infections were added to the tally for the 3rd straight day.

The Department of Health (DOH) reported 2,019 new cases on Saturday, lifting the country’s total confirmed COVID-19 infections to 78,412.

The country’s streak of 2,000-plus daily added cases started on Thursday, July 23 with 2,200, and 2,103 on Friday, July 24.

These additions pushed the number of total cases closer to the 85,000-milestone that experts from the University of the Philippines projected the country would reach by July 31.

A total of 1,115 new cases on Saturday were from Metro Manila, while 479 were from Cebu, 90 from Cavite, 52 from Rizal, and 41 from Davao del Sur.

Despite being under a general community quarantine, Metro Manila has reported staggering numbers of 1,000-plus cases in 9 of the last 10 days, or since July 16.

The country’s COVID-19 death toll climbed to 1,897, after 20 cases were added.

Ten fatalities were from Central Visayas, 6 from Metro Manila, two Calabarzon, and one each from Central Luzon and Zamboanga Peninsula.

The DOH said that of these deaths, 13 happened in July, 4 in June, 2 in April, and 1 in March.

Meanwhile, 1,278 new recoveries were recorded, bringing the total number to 25,752.

The latest data tallied 50,763 active cases in the Philippines.

According to the website worldometers.info, as of Saturday, the Philippines had the highest number of active cases among ASEAN member-countries. The country was second to Indonesia in total cases reported, and the second highest total cases per one million population behind after Singapore.

The DOH also reported that 51 duplicates had been removed from the total case count, as part of its cleaning and validation process. Among those removed were 25 recovered cases and 2 deaths from previous reports. 

The department also said that 3 cases previously reported as recoveries were found to be deaths, after further validation. – Rappler.com