The Department of Health (DOH) on Monday, January 11, logged over 2,000 coronavirus cases – the first time the Philippines surpassed that level since December 18, when the country recorded 2,122.

The 2,052 cases on Monday pushed the country’s total infections to 489,736. Of the total, 22,114 are active, said the DOH.

Davao City has the highest number of new cases at 140, followed by Quezon City (93), Cavite (87), Laguna (83), and the City of Manila (67).

Coronavirus deaths also continue to rise with 11 new fatalities on Monday. The death toll is now 9,416.

Recoveries grew by 10 to 458,206. The number of new recoveries is the lowest since April 6, when 9 recoveries were reported.

The DOH said 3 testing laboratories were not able to submit their reports on time. The country has 197 licensed testing hubs as of January 9.

The spike in the new daily case count comes after the Christmas and New Year festivities.

Earlier on Monday, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the potential surge in COVID-19 cases due to holiday activities might be seen this week.

She previously explained that several factors in the monitoring of cases were affected during the holiday season, such as the limited or suspended operations of some testing hubs and people unlikely to get tested as they were busy with their families.

There are also fears that more cases could be reported following the Feast of the Black Nazarene last Saturday, January 9, which drew hundreds of thousands of devotees to the Quiapo Church in Manila, according to police estimates.

The DOH said last Friday, January 8, that aside from the United Kingdom variant – believed to be more infectious than the original variant of SARS-CoV-2 – it is also monitoring other variants of the virus found in South Africa and Malaysia.

Despite the case of the Filipino in Hong Kong found to have the UK variant, the DOH maintained that this variant has not yet reached the Philippines, based on results of the Philippine Genome Center’s genome sequencing released last Wednesday, January 6. – Rappler.com