More than 3 million COVID cases reported in Philippines since pandemic started

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines has reported more than three million coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic, the Department of Health said Tuesday as the country struggles to control outbreaks driven by the Omicron variant.

The DOH registered 28,007 additional infections, raising the caseload to 3,026,473.

Daily cases have reached unprecedented highs in January following increased mobility during the holiday season and the detection of local cases of the hyper-transmissible Omicron variant.

Fifty-five percent of the newly-reported cases were from Metro Manila. Twenty-one percent of the infections were from Calabarzon, while 11% were from Central Luzon.

The positivity rate was 44.5% out of 58,409 tests. This was way above the 5-percent threshold of the World Health Organization for opening economies.

Twelve testing laboratories did not submit their data to the department.

The death toll hit 52,511 after 219 more patients died, while recoveries increased by 4,471 to 2,792,946.

There were 181,016 active cases, 5,521 of which were asymptomatic, 170,873 were mild, 2,863 were moderate, 1,464 were severe and 295 were critical.

Philippines at ‘critical risk’

• The Philippines is now at critical risk from COVID-19, DOH Secretary Francisco Duque III said Monday.
• The country’s Food and Drug Administration has granted a compassionate special permit for Bexovid, the generic version of Pfizer’s COVID-19 pill Paxlovid. 
• The departments of health and of trade and industry have set a purchase limit on basic medicines to try to give more people access to them.