The Philippines on Wednesday recorded the highest one-day tally of new Covid-19 cases in August after the Department of Health (DOH) logged 12,021 cases, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 1,688,040.
There were also 9,591 recoveries and 154 deaths.
Meanwhile, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that 41 areas are currently under alert level 4 or those moderate- to high-risk and has an health-care utilization rate (HCUR ) higher than 70 percent in the current week.
As of August 10, areas currently under alert level 4 are the following :
- NCR: Las Piñas, Malabon, Makati,Marikina, Muntinlupa, Navotas, San Juan, Pateros, Quezon City, Taguig, and Valnzuela
- Cordillera Autonomous Region : Apayao, Baguio City, Benguet
- R1: Dagupan City, Ilocos Norte
- R2: Cagayan, Quirino
- R3: Angeles City, Pampanga, Tarlac
- R4A: Batangas, Cavite, Laguna, Quezon, Lucena City, Rizal
- R5: Naga City
- R6: Aklan, Iloilo,Iloilo City
- R7: Cebu, Cebu City, Lapu-Lapu City, Siquijor
- R8: Ormoc City
- R10: Bukidnon, Cagayan De Oro City, Camiguin
- R12: General Santos City, South Cotabato
Earlier, Vergeire said that areas under alert level 1 are those with low transmission and decreasing HCUR, no Delta variant case in an area, at minimal to low risk, have a negative two-week case growth rate (TWGR) and HCUR lower than 50 percent.
Alert level 2, on the other hand, shows low transmission and decreasing HCUR, Delta case is present, have positive TWGR, or areas that are at minimal to low risk, have a negative TWGR, but have an HCUR higher than 50 percent, and alert Level 3 means that although an area is at moderate to critical risk, their Covid bed occupancy rate is lower than 70 percent.
Vergeire said that levels 3 and 4 does not take into account the presence of the Delta variant in an area.
Covid cases
Of the total number of cases, 4.8 percent (81,399) are active cases, 93.4 percent (1,577,267) have recovered, and 1.74 percent (29,374) have died.
The DOH said that 137 duplicates were removed from the total case count. Of these, 129 are recoveries.
Moreover, 3 cases previously tagged as recoveries have been validated to be active cases and 112 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.
All laboratories were operational on August 9, 2021 but 3 labs were not able to submit their data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System.
Based on data in the last 14 days, the 3 non-reporting labs contribute, on average, 2.0 percent of samples tested and 1.2 percent of positive individuals.
Image courtesy of Roy Domingo