Philippines logs 84 new COVID-19 cases, national total now at 636
MANILA, Philippines (Updated 4:50 p.m.) — The confirmed new coronavirus infections in the Philippines soared toward 636 Wednesday afternoon as President Rodrigo Duterte approved a bill granting him additional powers to address the escalating health crisis in the country.
There are now 636 cases of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the country after health authorities detected 84 new cases.
Three additional deaths were recorded, bringing the national toll to 38.
The country’s 36th fatality was a 56-year-old Filipino male from Quezon City with no travel and exposure history. Identified as Patient 319, he passed away on March 22 due to community acquired pneumonia secondary to COVID-19.
A 57-year-old male from Caloocan City also passed away on March 16 but was only confirmed positive for COVID-19 on March 21 due to acute respiratory distress syndrome secondary to community acquired pneumonia high risk and COVID-19.
The man, identified as Patient 326, had no travel and known exposure history.
The country’s 39th COVID-19 death was Patient 29, a 82-year-old Filipino female from Marikina City. She had a travel history to the United States and had exposure to a known COVID-19 case.
She passed away on March 23 due to shock multifactorial, ARDS secondary to COVID-19 pneumonia and acute renal failure secondary to sepsis.
Data from the Department of Foreign Affairs also showed that two overseas Filipinos have died from the virus—one in the Asia Pacific region and one in Europe.
As of March 24, 169 overseas Filipinos in 25 countries and regions have been infected by the new coronavirus. The DFA said 77 are undergoing treatment while 90 have recovered or have been discharged.
Meanwhile, DOH reported six recoveries, raising the number of recovered patients to 26.
With authorities stepping up testing, they are expecting that the number of cases in the country will balloon in the coming days.
Widespread testing is crucial in the fight of virus-hit countries such as South Korea and Singapore against the pandemic as it allows authorities to isolate and treat infected people.
With the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act of 2020 signed, Duterte is given the authority to reshuffle funds in this year’s budget to provide assistance to 18 million low-income households.
The measure also ensures that healthcare workers get special risk allowance on top of their hazard pay.
The coronavirus pandemic has infected nearly 418,000 people across the globe and killed more than 18,000 since the virus first emerged in China late last year.
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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