Following the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) which started in Wuhan, Hubei, China, the Philippine government confirmed the country's first case of the disease on January 30, 2020, when the virus was detected in a Chinese national who traveled from Wuhan, China and Hong Kong.[2] The second case was confirmed on February 2, with the patient being the husband of the first case who was also Chinese.[3] Three days later, on February 5, another Chinese national was confirmed to the be third case in the Philippines.[4] After a month, on March 5, the Department of Health announced that the first Filipino in the Philippines confirmed to be infected with COVID-19 who is also the fourth case while the fifth case is the first case of local transmission since the infected person did not travel outside the Philippines.[5][6] The sixth case that was confirmed on March 7 is the wife of the fifth case.[7] In the following days, the number of cases steadily increased.[8]