Philippines sees 224 more COVID-19 cases as total hits 12,942
MANILA, Philippines (Updated, 4:36 p.m.) — The number of coronavirus infections in the Philippines rose to 12,942 Tuesday after the Department of Health reported 224 new COVID-19 cases.
The Department of Health said 78% of the newly-recorded infections nationwide were logged in Metro Manila, which is now under a more relaxed enhanced community quarantine after a two-month lockdown.
Seven percent of the additional infections were detected in Central Visayas, which includes Cebu City and Mandaue City—the only areas that remain under enhanced community quarantine. Meanwhile, 15% of the new cases were spread out across the country.
DOH also reported that 114 more have recovered from COVID-19, bringing the total number of patients who have survived the illness to 2,843.
But the agency recorded six additional deaths. The nation’s fatality count stood at 837.
Some 207,823 people have been tested for COVID-19 in the country as of May 15. A target of 30,000 tests per day has been set for the end of the month.
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said the government is eyeing to test 1.5% to 2% of the country’s almost 110 million residents as he stressed that it would be “physically impossible” to test everyone in the Philippines.
“What what we’re doing is trying to follow the best examples that we have. Right now, we’re trying to follow the footsteps of South Korea and that’s why the goal is to test 1.5 to 2 percent of the total population,” he said in an interview on CNN Philippines.
Virus hotspot Metro Manila, and Laguna, Bataan, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga and Zambales were placed under modified ECQ that allowed more industries and sectors to open.
Areas classified as low risk and moderate risk, meanwhile, were placed under general community quarantine.
The coronavirus pandemic has killed 318,303 people out of the more than 4.7 million infected around the world since its emergence in China late last year.
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said Monday the pandemic should serve as a “wake-up call” to countries, which must be more united in responding to the health crisis.
“We have seen some solidarity, but very little unity in our response to COVID-19. Different countries have followed different, sometimes contradictory strategies and we are all paying a heavy price,” he said.
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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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