Philippines records 53 new recoveries as COVID-19 infections top 5,000
MANILA, Philippines (Update 1, 5:15 p.m.) — With 291 new cases of the novel coronavirus reported on Tuesday, the number of confirmed infections in the Philippines surpassed the 5,000-mark.
In a matter of months, the new coronavirus has infected 5,223 individuals in the country, the Department of Health said in a bulletin.
The Philippines has the highest number of confirmed infections in Southeast Asia. According to John Hopkins University coronavirus tally, Malaysia has 4,817 cases, Indonesia has 4,557 cases, Singapore has 2,918 cases while Thailand has 2,613 cases.
The COVID-19 outbreak has now claimed the lives of 335 individuals in the country after additional 20 fatalities were recorded.
Fifty-three more people have been cleared of the illness—the most number of recoveries reported in a day so far. In total, there are now 295 recovered patients in the country.
The increase in the number of recoveries can be attributed to the inclusion of the patients with mild or no symptoms who got better while in home quarantine in the DOH tally.
Meanwhile, 3,151 patients are still being treated in hospitals.
The government is expected to begin its expanded COVID-19 testing on Tuesday that will cover individuals who exhibit severe flu-like symptoms, the elderly, those with pre-existing health conditions, pregnant women and healthcare workers with symptoms.
So far, 38,103 individuals have been tested in the country.
The Department of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday reported that 44 more Filipinos abroad have been infected with COVID-19, taking the tally to 704. Of the number, 216 have recovered.
Four new deaths in the Americas and Europe were recorded. In total, 88 Filipinos have died from the new coronavirus.
Vaccine needed to fully halt spread of virus
The World Health Organization said the novel coronavirus is 10 times deadlier than the 2009 flu pandemic.
WHO said the “swine flu” or H1N1 outbreak, which was declared a pandemic in June 2009 and considered over by August 2010, killed 18,500 people. But the Lancet medical estimated the toll to be between 151,700 and 575,400.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that “control measures must be lifted slowly and with control.”
“Ultimately, the development and delivery of safe and effective vaccine will be needed to fully interrupt transmission,” he said.
It may take at least 12 to 18 months before a coronavirus vaccine to be publicly available.
More than 1.9 million confirmed cases have been recorded since the virus first emerged in central China late last year. The worldwide death toll rose to over 119,000. — with report from Agence France-Presse
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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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