Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 1) — The country on Saturday welcomed the first day of 2022 with 3,617 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total to 2,847,486, according to the latest bulletin of the Department of Health.
The last time the daily case count was over 3,000 was on Nov. 1 with 3,117.
Of the nationwide tally, 17,374 are active cases or people currently sick – with 11,603 experiencing mild symptoms, 3,124 having moderate symptoms, 1,635 severe, 673 with no symptoms, and 339 in critical condition.
He added that Metro Manila’s reproduction rate is now at 4.05 – indicating a faster transmission of the coronavirus. This is the highest reproduction rate for the region since April 1, 2020, David also noted.
Of the 3,617 new cases reported, 3,607 occurred within the the past two weeks from Dec. 19 to Jan. 1, the DOH said. The top regions with most cases in the period were Metro Manila with 2,526, Calabarzon with 570, and Central Luzon with 199.
OCTA Research fellow Guido David said the spike in cases may have been caused by holiday gatherings and complacency.
Meanwhile, 468 new recoveries and 43 more fatalities push the survivor count to 2,778,567 and the death toll to 51,545. Of the new deaths reported, five occurred in December, four in November, seven in October, 14 in September, six in August, two in July, three in June, one in November and one in August 2020. The late reporting was due to the delayed encoding of information to the COVID-Kaya data storage system, the DOH explained.
The department also said 15 duplicates – including seven recoveries and two deaths – were removed from the tally.
Another 95 cases were found to have tested negative and have been removed from the COVID-19 count. They were later reclassified as recoveries.
Moreover, 41 cases previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.
The DOH said two laboratories did not operate on Dec. 30, 2021 while six others failed to submit their reports on time. Based on data in the last 14 days, the eight non-reporting laboratories contribute, on average, 0.2% of samples tested and 0.1% of positive individuals.
The positivity rate – or percentage of tested people with positive results – also rose to 14.8% based on 29,239 tests reported on Dec. 30.
Under World Health Organization standards, the ideal positivity rate is below 5% – and must be maintained for at least 14 days for countries or regions to reopen.
The national government on Dec. 31 decided to revert NCR to the stricter Alert Level 3 from Jan. 3 to 15, after the country recorded its first local Omicron cases.
David earlier said in a tweet the country’s daily new cases could return to less than 3,000 on Sunday as the spike in cases could be due to the holiday season.
“Dahil mas mabilis ito, palagay namin hindi na ito yung Delta (variant). Possibly, may Delta transmissions pa ring nangyayari pero baka may ibang nagtutulak ng surge ngayon,” David told CNN Philippines’ Newsroom Weekend on Saturday.
[Translation: Since the spread of the virus is faster, we think this is not caused by the Delta variant. Possibly, there are still Delta transmissions happening but there can be a different factor that is causing this surge.]
