MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines registered 7,999 new coronavirus infections on Saturday, the second consecutive day that the country recorded a record daily number of cases.
In a bulletin, the health ministry said the number of confirmed cases rose to 656,056, while confirmed deaths reached 12,930, after another 30 were recorded on Saturday.
The Southeast Asian nation is battling a new outbreak of infections, including those of the new and more communicable variants, delaying the new reopening of its pandemic-stricken economy.
“The cases of COVID-19 recorded in the country remain high. It is better to stay home if leaving the house is not necessary,” said the ministry.
Graphic: Philippines fights new outbreak of COVID-19 infection – https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS/PHILIPPINES/bdwpkmebwpm/chart.png
The Philippines also recorded 114 cases of COVID-19 because of new variants of the coronavirus, including six infections of the P.3 variant developed internally, after a new series of genome sequencing in 150 samples.
He reported 46 new variant B.1.1.7 infections first detected in Great Britain and 62 cases of variant B.1.351 discovered in South Africa. This brings the cases of these variants to 223 and 152, respectively.
The Philippines has the second highest number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Southeast Asia, after Indonesia.
(Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by William Mallard and Kim Coghill)