MANILA, Philippines – For the second day in a row, the Philippines logged a fresh one-day record number of new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, January 9.

In its latest bulletin, the Department of Health (DOH) confirmed 28,707 new infections.

This brings the country’s total caseload to 2,965,447.

Sunday’s new cases follow the previous record of 26,458 cases announced on Saturday, January 8.

The total number of active cases reached 128,114, the highest in over three months, or since October 2, 2021. This comprises 4.3% of all confirmed cases.

The DOH also logged a positivity rate of 44% out of 77,479 tests on Friday, January 7. It is the new highest daily positivity rate since the pandemic began. This means that more than two in five people tested for the virus turned out positive.

These positive cases are added to the tally of confirmed cases only after further validation. This process helps ensure there wouldn’t be duplicate cases on record, and that all test results had been submitted, the DOH explained.

The DOH said all testing hubs were operational on Friday, but 14 laboratories were not able to submit their data on time. The cases reflected in the bulletin were based on tests conducted two days ago.

The health department also reported 15 new deaths due to COVID-19, raising the death toll to 52,150. 

However, only 11 of these deaths occurred in January 2022, while the rest happened from September to December 2021. The late reporting is “due to late encoding of death information” in its COVIDKaya data system, explained the department.

Meanwhile, recoveries were up by 2,579. A total of 2,785,183 cases have now recovered from COVID-19.

Nationwide, the occupancy of COVID-19 beds remains at safe levels, but it is gradually increasing. In Metro Manila, occupancy rates of all bed types are above 50%, and ward beds are at 65% occupancy, which is already at a moderate level, based on the DOH’s latest bulletin.

Cases have suddenly exploded in the past two to three weeks, following the detection of the hypertransmissible Omicron variant in the country.

Must Read

COVID-19 Weekly Watch: How worrisome is Omicron?

Metro Manila, which is seeing a huge spike in cases, has been under Alert Level 3 since January 3.

More areas were later placed under the stricter quarantine level until January 15, like neighboring provinces Rizal, Bulacan, Laguna, and Cavite, as well as 14 more areas.

Beefing up gov’t response

In a statement on Sunday, Acting Presidential Spokesperson Karlo Nograles relayed the recommendations of the the sub-technical working group on data analytics of the government’s coronavirus task force to help address the increasing hospital care utilization rate. The sub-technical working group suggested the following:

• Increase the bed capacity in Metro Manila and in the “NCR Plus” bubble
• Integrate the monitoring of the capacity of temporary treatment and monitoring facilities (TTMFs) into the tracking of health systems capacity
• Ensure that patients needing care are promptly and appropriately referred
• Reassess the capacity of TTMFs, increase TTMF capacity where needed, and remove any referral quotas from hospitals

Other relevant health units have also been ordered to immediately check with Metro Manila hospitals to determine how COVID-19 bed capacity is being allocated, and to increase the capacity of telehealth and telemedicine outside the National Capital Region, said Nograles.

The group also recommended that the COVID-19 Laboratory Network step up RT-PCR testing capacity in “NCR Plus” areas, prioritize A2 and A3 populations for testing, fast-track the applications of new RT-PCR laboratories, and promptly provide supplies for swabbing and testing.

Meanwhile, the Community Response Cluster and the Department of the Interior and Local Government have been tasked to ensure that there are emergency operations centers with functional triage areas in all local government units, closely monitor those undergoing home isolation or quarantine through barangay health emergency response teams, and intensify active case finding in “NCR Plus” and in all areas under Alert Level 2.

Finally, the National Vaccination Operations Center was directed to increase vaccination rates outside NCR as soon as possible. – Rappler.com