MANILA, Philippines (Updated 4:55 p.m.) — Significant upticks in the Department of Health’s (DOH) novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) tally continue to be the norm as the department on Sunday added 172 new cases of the new virus, yielding a total of 6,259 recorded cases—a 2.8% increase from 6,087 the day before.
Sunday’s latest COVID-19 influx come with 12 new deaths and 56 new recoveries, bringing the national totals for each to 409 and 572 respectively. These also bring the number of active cases in the country to 5,278.
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Luzon is entering its fifth week of an enhanced community quarantine that is expected to go on until at least the end of April.
PUIs and PUMs still tracked
Health Undersecretary Rosette Vergeire, also department spokesperson, said that despite not being included in the department's new classification scheme, patients under investigation and persons under monitoring are still being tracked.
Vergeire said that PUIs were listed as either probable or suspect cases depending on the symptoms displayed. "PUIs and PUMs didn't really disappear in the classification, now they're either suspect or probable," she said in Filipino.
READ: 'PUMs' should still be tracked, health group says of new COVID-19 classification scheme
Patients who test positive in laboratories not certified by the department as well as with rapid antibody tests or non-polymerase chain reaction test kits are classified as probable cases.
Suspect cases, on the other hand, are patients with influenza-like symptoms who live in places with local transmission of COVID-19, the health spokesperson said.
Some healthcare groups have raised concerns that the new classification could be used to hide supposed failures in surveillance and tracing of people who may have come in contact with infected patients.
UP high-speed test kits
Also present at the health department's online presser on Sunday afternoon was Raul Destura, the University of the Philippines scientist who led the team that developed COVID-19 diagnostic kits.
He said that manufacturing of the new test kits had already begun after all necessary approvals were secured.
Destura explained that these test kits are also RT-PCR tests, which the DOH has considers the gold standard in detecting the new pathogen, and are one-step tests that directly target confirmatory genes for COVID-19.
The kit also underwent a field validation study by third-party epidemiologists whose reports were submitted to the Food and Drug Administration.
"Our manufacturing facilities are going all out, and 6,000-8,000 tests are being manufactured per day and we are hoping to increase this to 16,000 tests per day by May 1," Destura said in a mix of English and Filipino.
According to Destura, local governments in Metro Manila have already started ordering the tests, which the UP team would be providing technical training and assistance for. Online training was already being held for the department's biologists and staff, Vergeire said.
The week in COVID-19 developments
Earlier this week, a majority of senators filed a resolution Thursday asking Health Secretary Francisco Duque III to resign from his post. President Rodrigo Duterte took note of the senators' sentiments but decided to retain Duque as health chief.
On Friday, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia resigned from his post, citing personal reasons on top of "differences in development philosophy with a few of my fellow Cabinet members."
This, while the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology announced Friday that nine of its inmates have tested positive for COVID-19—a troubling development given the 500% congestion rate in the BJMP’s jail facilities that renders social distancing impossible for inmates.
READ: 9 BJMP inmates test positive for COVID-19
BJMP’s announcement comes as calls for the probationary releases of the low-level, elderly, and vulnerable prisoners continue to resound, with the Department of Social Welfare and Development, Commission on Human Rights expressing their support for the proposal.
Though experts have said that the virus is significantly more fatal in the elderly and the immunocompromised, the Philippine currently has a case fatality rate of 6.6%—a figure just just slightly higher than the global average of 6.4%.
Earlier this weekend, the health department also disclosed that 766 health workers tested positive for the new pathogen, making up a worrying 13% of the country’s total number of confirmed cases.
READ: DOH: 766 health workers tested positive for COVID-19
Healthcare workers working the frontlines of the country’s fight against COVID-19—a sector that has been calling for more government support throughout the pandemic—are among those most at risk of possible transmission of it.
In the meantime, the nation’s poorest continue to await aid promised by the national government, owing to a somewhat muddled rolling out of its social amelioration program.
Duterte earlier this week appealed for citizens to discipline themselves in observing social distancing, warning that he would issue orders for military and police enforcement that he likened to Martial Law.
READ: Duterte asks public for 'discipline' in following quarantine rules
If you believe you have come into possible contact with infected patients, you may be directed to the proper office of the Department of Health for advice through the following lines: (632) 8651-7800 local 1149/1150 or (632) 165-364. You may also opt to call the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine at (02) 8807-2631/ 8807-2632/ 8807-2637. The general public has also been encouraged to forward its concerns to the Health Department's dedicated 24/7 COVID-19 hotlines (02) 894-COVID and 1555 (free for all subscribers).