NEW coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases continued to rise while 210 more patients succumbed to the deadly virus yesterday as the death toll climbed to 20,379, according to the Department of Health.
In its latest bulletin, the DOH reported 6,483 new cases, a figure that did not include numbers from six laboratories that failed to submit data to the COVID-19 Document Repository System (CDRS) last May 25.
The DOH said the latest number of fatalities included 139 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries but were reclassified as deaths after final validation, raising the case fatality rate to 1.70 from 1.69 last Wednesday.
The Philippines had the second highest deaths in Southeast Asia, after Indonesia, which had 49,771 casualties as of Wednesday, with Myanmar ranked third (3,216), followed by Malaysia (2,432).
Thailand had 873 deaths, followed by Cambodia (190), Vietnam (44), Singapore (32), Timor Leste (13), Brunei (3), and Laos (2).
Indonesia also had the most infections in Southeast Asia at 1,791,221.
The latest number of infections was a marked increase from 5,310 reported last Wednesday and the highest in five days.
There were 3,083 new cases last Sunday, 4,972 on Monday, and 3,972 on Tuesday.
Active cases rose to 48,109 from 46,037 last Wednesday, with 92.7 percent mild cases, 2.2 percent asymptomatic cases, 2.1 percent severe cases, 1.6 percent critical cases, and 1.4 percent moderate cases.
The DOH said that 4,335 more patients recovered, raising the number of survivors to 1,131,942.
This means that 94.3 percent of patients successfully battled the deadly virus.
For the second straight day, there was no update from the Department of Foreign Affairs on the number of overseas Filipinos who have contracted the deadly virus.
The DFA did not offer an explanation.
As of last Tuesday, the death toll involving overseas Filipinos stood at 1,168.
