More than 7,000 new COVID-19 cases were reported in the Philippines for the 3rd day in a row on Sunday, March 21, as the country’s caseload breached 663,000.

The Department of Health (DOH) announced 7,757 new cases on Sunday, bringing the country’s total confirmed coronavirus cases to 663,794.

This followed two consecutive single-day records for new cases, with 7,103 on Friday, March 19, and 7,999 on Saturday, March 20.

Sunday’s tally is now the second highest one-day count since the pandemic began, next only to Saturday’s tally.

It was only on March 9, less than two weeks ago, when the Philippines’ total cases reached the 600,000 mark.

The DOH also reported 39 new deaths due to COVID-19 on Sunday, bringing the death toll to 12,968.

Meanwhile, recoveries went up by 15,288, most of which are due to the DOH’s weekly time-based tagging of mild and asymptomatic cases as recoveries. This raised total recoveries to 577,754.

Of the total cases, 73,072 or 11% are active.

So far, the country’s latest daily positivity rate has remained high, at 14.8% based on data as of 12 pm on Saturday.

Due to the fast rise in new COVID-19 cases, the DOH on Saturday night urged Filipinos to act with “extreme vigilance” especially during the upcoming Holy Week.

The DOH also emphasized that its priority now is to ensure that health care is not delayed for both COVID-19 and non-COVID patients.

The Octa Research group warned on Saturday that if the virus’ spread is not contained, intensive care units in hospitals in Metro Manila might reach full capacity by the first week of April. – Rappler.com