Coronavirus infections in the Philippines cross 153,000
MANILA, Philippines (Updated 4:53 p.m.) — The Philippines surpassed 153,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus Friday after registering 6,216 new infections, the Department of Health said.
This is the second highest number of additional cases recorded in a single-day. The country reported the biggest daily increase—6,901 cases—on August 10.
The country’s caseload now stands at 153,660 with 79,813 classified as active cases or patients who are still infected with the virus.
Researchers from the University of the Philippines and the University of Santo Tomas previously projected that the country’s cases may reach 150,000 by the end of August.
The regions with the highest number of newly-reported cases include Metro Manila with 3,848, Laguna with 302, Rizal with 242, Cavite with 240 and Bulacan with 178.
Recoveries, meanwhile, climbed to 71,405 after 1,038 more COVID-19 survivors were logged.
But 16 more coronavirus-related fatalities were recorded, raising the death toll to 2,442.
The country has been seeing massive increases in daily cases following the easing of containment measures and the reopening of the economy in June.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said working people make up the bulk of confirmed coronavirus cases in the country.
“The drivers of infection are those who go out of their homes and when they return, they will bring infection to their homes,” she said in a mix of English and Filipino Friday.
Metro Manila and its neighboring provinces were placed under modified enhanced community quarantine until August 18 in a bid to give swamped health workers a breather and recalibrate the government’s pandemic response. Malacañang said the extension of MECQ is “highly unlikely” as the government struggles to provide assistance for the poor.
Over 1.829 million individuals have been tested for coronavirus in the country.
The novel coronavirus has killed at least 752,000 since the outbreak emerged in China late last year. Over 20.75 million cases of COVID-19 have been registered.
Follow this page for updates on a mysterious pneumonia outbreak that has struck dozens of people in China.
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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