The Philippines on Wednesday crossed the grim milestone of two million COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, underscoring how infections have ramped up due to the hyper-contagious Delta variant.
The Department of Health reported 14,216 new cases for the day, bringing the total active cases to 140,949. There were 86 deaths and 18,754 recoveries, bringing the cumulative totals to 33,533 and 1,829,473 respectively.
It took just four months for the Philippines to reach two million from one million cases last April. Delta, now the dominant variant, has pushed daily record highs four times in August, the last was 22,366 last Aug. 30.
On Monday, President Rodrigo Duterte said the country's pandemic-fighting strategy would be rebooted to avoid large-scale lockdowns that have sunk the economy into a recession.
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