Philippines registers 414 new virus infections, 11 additional deaths
MANILA, Philippines (Updated 6:13 p.m.) — The Philippines on Monday recorded a total 3,660 confirmed coronavirus cases and 163 deaths as the main island of Luzon entered its fourth week of enhanced community quarantine that has shuttered businesses and schools and prohibited all mass gatherings.
The Department of Health reported 414 additional infections—a massive increase from the 152 cases registered on Sunday. The figure is forecast to continue rising as the country ramps up its testing efforts.
The department also logged 11 new deaths from the viral illness.
Nine more COVID-19 patients recovered, raising the number of recoveries in the Philippines to only 73.
Nearly 23,000 tests—which include retests and validations—have been conducted in the country.
Luzon lockdown likely to be extended
Government officials said the enhanced community quarantine is likely to be extended but no final decision has been raised yet.
DOH spokesperson Maria Rosario Vergeire said before the department recommends the lifting of the enhanced community quarantine, the agency will have to examine the trend of COVID-19 infections and the capacity of the country’s healthcare system.
“To prevent the occurrence of second wave or the surge of cases after the community quarantine is lifted which is being experienced in other nations, we should continue doing stringent measures such as physical distancing, cough etiquette, regular handwashing and avoidance of mass gathering,” she said in Filipino.
More than 1.2 million declared cases have been recorded in 191 countries and territories since the virus first emerged in China late last year. The number of fatalities globally reached 68,125.
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New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.
Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.
The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP
The World Health Organization and US health authorities say Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown.
The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday.
So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP
The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".
The WHO declared in May that Covid is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP
The head of US intelligence says that there was no evidence that the COVID-19 virus was created in the Chinese government's Wuhan research lab.
In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.
Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP
Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.
The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".
But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.
In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.
He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".
Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP
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