The ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a novel infectious disease caused

by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), spread to the Philippines on

January 30, 2020, when the first case of the disease was confirmed in Metro Manila. It involved a
38-year-old Chinese woman who was confined in the San Lazaro Hospital in Manila. The second
case was confirmed on February 2, that of a 44-year-old Chinese man who died a day earlier, which
was also the first confirmed death from the disease outside mainland China.[1][2][3] The first case of
someone without travel history abroad was confirmed on March 5, a 62-year-old male who
frequented a Muslim prayer hall in San Juan, Metro Manila, raising suspicions that a community
transmission of COVID-19 is already underway in the Philippines. The man's wife was confirmed to
have contracted COVID-19 on March 7, which was also the first local transmission to be confirmed.[4]
[5]

As of May 19, 2020, there have been 12,942 confirmed cases of the disease in the country. Out of
these cases, 2,843 recoveries and 837 deaths were recorded.[6][7][8][9][10][11] The Philippines has the third
most number of cases in Southeast Asia, 15th in Asia, and 42nd in the world.[7][9][12] The largest single-
day increase in the number of confirmed cases was on March 31, when 538 new cases were
announced.[13] Meanwhile, the smallest single-day increase since the last week of March was on April
4, when only 76 new cases were announced.[14]
The Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM) in Muntinlupa, Metro Manila, is the medical
facility where suspected cases are being tested for COVID-19 since January 30, 2020. The
Philippines has 31 subnational laboratories capable of detecting SARS-CoV-2. The country has
conducted a total of 244,800 tests as of May 17, including repeat tests, and have tested more than
207,000 unique individuals.[15]
As of May 16, at least one case has been confirmed in all of the country's 17 regions, while 21 out of
the 81 provinces of the country are still COVID-19 free.[6] High income and low substinence incidence
has been associated with the significant reduction of COVID-19 cases across the 17 regions of the
country.[16]