Philippines reports 2,656 new COVID-19 cases

MANILA, Philippines — Philippine health authorities on Saturday reported 2,656 new coronavirus infections, pushing the total number of cases to 2,800,621.

• Active cases: 34,866 or 1.2% of the total
   
• Deaths: 154, pushing the count to 44,239
   
• Recoveries: 5,130 bringing the number to 2,721,516

Fewer quarantine violators, more vaccines

• Philippine National Police chief Gen. Guillermo Eleazar said they logged 9,461 quarantine violators on the first day that Alert Level 2 was hoisted over Metro Manila.
   
• This was slightly lower than the average daily number of people they apprehended for quarantine violations in the past 20 days when the capital region was under the stricter Alert Level 3.
   
• A total of 866,970 doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine arrived Friday night in the Philippines, bringing the total number of jabs that have landed in the country to 109,779,530.
   
• The fresh shipment of shots is the first batch of 1,733,940 Pfizer doses that were bought by the national government through a loan from the Asian Development Bank. The second batch, also consisting of 866,970 doses, will arrive Saturday night.
   
• Pfizer announced that its anti-COVID pill, Paxlovid, can reduce by 89% the risk of hospitalization or death among adult patients with the disease who are at high risk of progressing to severe illness.