Another surge in recoveries to be reported on Sunday – DOH

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 13) — Another batch of recoveries from COVID-19 under the "Oplan Recovery" program of the Department of Health (DOH) will be reported on Sunday, the agency announced.

The DOH reported on July 30 a massive rise in recoveries of over 38,000. It said 37,166 of these survivors or "time-based recoveries" were listed through its program.

Oplan Recovery was activated by the DOH "to monitor the statuses of confirmed COVID-19 cases, particularly deaths and recoveries to ensure that our data is updated and accurate," the agency explained in a statement on Thursday.

The department added that it will also begin reporting time-based recoveries every Sunday.

Time-based recoveries refer to patients released from isolation after a certain number of days of quarantine and after symptoms have disappeared upon a doctor's assessment.

The DOH said those without symptoms can return to the community after 14 days of isolation even without taking a confirmatory test. Those with mild symptoms should also complete the 14-day quarantine and three days of having no more symptoms, it explained. For severe cases, quarantine should be 21 days, it added.

However, this time-based strategy does not include immunocompromised patients, the DOH clarified, since they are required to undergo another swab test to determine if they have recovered from the illness or not.

Health Spokesperson Maria Rosario Vergeire assured that regional officers will continue to check the status of the patients before including them in the list of recoveries.