The DOH confirmed that on Wednesday, the number of COVID-19 cases in the Philippines continued to rise. Now, there are 84 new infections, that brings the total to 636.

According to DOH, the death toll has also climbed up to 38 and there are three new fatalities.

On Tuesday, the President announced that there is an implementation of a national action plan to reinforce efforts of the DOH to combat COVID-19.

As of Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, the Philippines increased testing capacity was behind the surge of cases this month. 

She said, “In these coming days, kapag natanggal na po natin lahat ng backlogs makikita na po natin ang totoong mga numero sa pagtaas o di kaya pagbaba dito sa ating bansa,”

The three new Filipinos are the latest fatalities that were identified as Patients 319, 326, and 29.

Patient 319 is a hypertensive and diabetic, he is a resident from Quezon City, a 56-year-old male with no history of travel or exposure to known cases. He died on March 21 due to community-acquired pneumonia secondary to COVID-19.

Patient 326 is a hypertensive and diabetic 57-year-old male from Caloocan with dyslipidemia. The patient has no travel or exposure history. He also died last March 16 of acute respiratory distress syndrome secondary to community-acquired high-risk pneumonia and COVID-19. His test results only came positive on March 21.

And Patient 29 is an 82-year-old female from Marikina City with a travel history from the United States. She was the wife of Patient 9, an 86-year-old American male who earlier succumbed to the disease. She died of COVID-19 on March 23.

Based on the DOH online COVID-19 tracker, it shows that there are currently 615 persons under investigation nationwide, while 6,321 others are under monitoring.

DOH has so far conducted 1,793 COVID-19 tests. Vergeire said that 704 had tested negative for the disease this Tuesday.

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