Philippines’ COVID-19 cases breach 1.5 million

The Philippines recorded 6,040 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday, July 17, bringing the total number of cases to 1,502,359 since the pandemic was declared in March 2020.

The Department of Health also reported 122 more deaths due to COVID-19 on Saturday, as well as 7,213 more who have recovered from the illness.

With the latest figures,  3.1% or 47,257 of the total are active cases, 95.1% or 1,428,504 have recovered from COVID-19, while the death toll is now at 26,598.

The DOH said all testing laboratories were operational on July 15, but three labs failed to submit their results to the COVID-19 Document Repository System (CDRS).

Meanwhile, Davao City remains on top of the list of local government units (LGU) with the most number of daily COVID-19 cases from July 7 to July 16, the Octa Research group said in its monitoring report on Saturday, July 17.

With 224 new cases recorded during the period, Davao City is classified as “high” risk. The city also recorded a “very high” hospital intensive care unit utilization rate of 95% during the period. 

Following Davao City on the list is Quezon City with 115 cases, Cebu City with 98, Iloilo City with 91, and Manila with 84.

Of the 20 LGUs on the list of the LGUs with the most number of new cases, only the Mariveles municipality in Bataan is classified as “very high” risk for COVID-19. Though Mariveles ranked 10th, it recorded a high incidence rate of 40.66%.

Delta variant cases

On Friday, the DOH announced that the Philippines recorded 11 local cases of the COVID-19 Delta variant, but it was still determining if there had been local transmissions of the highly contagious variant.

During the Laging Handa briefing, Dr. Ma. Sophia Pulmones, Head of the Local Health Support Division of the Department of Health Western Visayas Center for Health Development, said two of these cases were from Antique: a 78-year-old female who died on May 31, and a 79-year-old male who recovered on June 13.

Pulmones said the two patients tested positive on May 28, but the results of the genomic sequencing confirming their infection with the highly contagious Delta variant were only known after the DOH reported on this on Friday.

Pulmones said both cases were not vaccinated against COVID-19 at the time they contracted the disease.

At the same briefing, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that the Philippines had recorded a total of 35 Delta variant cases with two deaths, and 33 recoveries.

Vergeire said that the government is conducting  “intensive contact tracing” among those found with the Delta variant. – With reports from Pauline Macaraeg/Rappler.com