There are no words to describe how we got from a few hundred cases to new record highs in a span of less than a month. Of course, we will always say it was inevitable. As to how we got here – it’s really water under the bridge.
The Health Agency announces 37,207 new cases based on close to 82,000 tests with a positivity rate that’s impossibly unbelievable at 47.3% done last January 12. At this point, all data are blurred already and the likelihood of symptomatic individuals testing positive will most likely be closer to 95%. Of the active cases, 98.2% of them are mild or asymptomatic. This puts around 95% of all active cases as mild at the time of testing.
The country now quickly passes the 3.1M mark in a matter of days as the number of cases continue to escalate.
Hospital utilization rate remains moderate risk in the NCR and nationally. And as mentioned, because hospitalization is a lagging indicator and that many healthcare workers are also sick, this may be an under report. Sadly, there is no more data drop provided by the DoH, but one can log on to their website and access regional, provincial and LGU information by going to the COVID19 tracker.
81 additional deaths are announced today.

Because there has been no data drop (and I don’t think there will be until the DoH increases its server capacity), here’s a rundown on the numbers of the day:
- NCR had 17,081 new cases or 49% of the total (lower now significantly compared to the previous week) with Quezon City leading at 3970 and the City of Manila in second at 1065. This MAY be an indication that the numbers in NCR may be slowing down. Note that these numbers are based on validated RT-PCR tests and do not include antigen tests from laboratories or from self-testing (albeit, illegally at home).
- The other regions that are climbing are CALABARZON with 8740 new cases and Central Luzon with 4137 new cases today. Region 2 is in third with 1088 cases.
- Other regions that reported more than 500 cases but less than 1000 are: Region 1 (939), Region 5 (701), Region 6 (825), Region 7 (737),and Region 8 (509). All other regions report less than 500 cases today
- There are 139 Returning Overseas Filipinos (ROFs) with positive cases – an extremely high number from a previous 2 daily cases.