MANILA – Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases in the country continue to soar after the Department of Health (DOH) tallied a new single-day record since the pandemic began.
DOH, in a data released on Friday afternoon, logged 7,103 confirmed new cases of COVID-19. It surpassed the previous highest number of cases recorded in just a day on Aug. 10, 2020, with 6,958.
The recorded number of new cases yesterday, which included data from five laboratories that failed to submit their data on time, pushed the total cases in the country to 648,066.
From the total count, active cases reach 73,264 – 93.9 percent are mild, 3.3 percent are asymptomatic, 1.1 percent is severe, and 1 percent is in critical condition.
DOH, meanwhile announced, that 390 more patients recovered which brings the total number of COVID-19 recoveries to 561, 902, while there were 13 new casualties for the death count of 12, 900.
On Friday, the World Health Organization said several factors caused the sudden surge of COVID-19 cases in the country – including the presence of more transmissible variants.
“What is striking is that the speed in which the number of cases increase also appears to be a little faster than last year ‘round,” WHO country representative Rabindra Abeyasinghe said.
Abeyasinghe described the increase as “a very complex scenario” influenced by “vaccine optimism” and the new variants detected in the country.
“It’s the fact that the arrival of the vaccines and the optimism that the vaccines brought have resulted in a decreased compliance with the public health measures. It’s not a noticeable decrease. It’s small changes at the individual level but at the community level it has meant it has opened room for the virus transmission to increase,” he said.
“Because we seem to have relaxed a little bit and that little relaxation appears to have driven and created room for increased transmission. And this is not something not unique to the Philippines,” he added./PN
