Department of Health (DOH) Secretary Francisco Duque urged everyone to look at the grim milestone of 1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases from a different perspective.
Duque said that a million COVID-19 cases in the country would also mean a million recoveries from the disease.
“The one million cases can be viewed also from a different angle that this will sooner or later will bring in a million recoveries,” he said in an interview on CNN Philippines.
“We need to look at a more optimistic lens of getting a high recovery rate of more than 90%,” Duque added.
The health chief also admitted that there are still a lot of ways to improve the government’s handling of the pandemic response.
“We need to focus as a nation [on] how we can further improve our pandemic response, there are always ways to do things better. I’m not saying we are successful. There are opportunities which we grab each time to do things better,” he said.
The Philippines has surpassed the one million coronavirus cases on Monday after recording 8,929 new confirmed cases.
The total confirmed cases in the country now stand at 1,006,428. There are 74,623 active cases or people currently infected by the virus.
The DOH said that 11,333 people have recovered from the virus bringing the total recoveries to 914,952. There were 70 people who have died from the virus increasing the death toll to 16,853.
