The Health Agency reports 1038 new cases based on 5% positivity rate from 25313 tests done on February 25, a holiday. With a couple of hundred more recoveries than new cases, the active cases drop to less than 53K. Around 91.5% of the positive cases were asymptomatic or mild at the time of testing.
Of the 1036 cases today, 1015 or 98% are ‘fresh’ or occurred in the last two weeks. NCR, Western Visayas and CALABARZON led the regions.
There are 51 additional deaths today. Of the deaths reported today, only 22% occurred in January and February. A whopping 78% were backlogs occurring all the way back from January to December 2021.
There were 9 duplicates removed from the total. Three were recoveries and one was a death.
There were 44 cases previously tagged as recoveries but on final validation were actually deaths.
NCR accounted for 23% of the total share with 230 cases today. This was led by City of Manila with 47 cases and Quezon City with 44. All other LGUs in Mega Manila had 0-20 cases. Those reporting single digit were: Malabon 6, Mandaluyong 8, Marikina 2, Muntinlupa 3, Navotas 1, San Juan 5, Valenzuela 8, and Pateros had ZERO covid.
There were 8 ROFs positive for COVID 19 today.
On a regional level, only three regions were left reporting triple digits. Aside from NCR, the other two were: CALABARZON 108 and Western Visayas 129. BARMM was the only region with single digit – reporting 5 cases.
THE WEEK IN REVIEW
As the cases continue to decline globally, many Asian nations are taking a whipping from the omicron wave. The Philippines, which began its omicron surge almost immediately after the delta wave is now seeing lower cases, especially in the more highly urbanized cities of the archipelago, where the government has pushed for vaccination in those eligible and rolled out the 5-11 years old sooner than other Asian nations.
One of the more important strategies at curbing the pandemic quicker was the sacrifice of the economic sector. Other Asian nations have a more difficult time in implementing this as part of their pandemic strategy as economic considerations take a front seat over health concerns.
The steep needle-rise in cases in the end of December was quick and by the end of January 2022, the cases also significantly dropped. The 7-day average is now around 1400 new daily cases and continues to take a downward trajectory as positivity rate drops to 5.3% in the country.
It’s the deaths, however, that is unsettling. With backlogs on deaths coming in this past week, the 7-day average deaths is up at 117 new daily deaths. A range of 30-50% are from deaths between July to December 2021.
Compared to the other Asian nations, the effective reproduction rate in the Philippines is at 0.47 (+/- 0.05), which means that we will continue to see lower cases in the upcoming weeks (and hopefully sustain that). The worst hit are South Korea and Vietnam, which will continue to see increasing cases. South Korea had its worst days in the last two days, as for the first time, was number one in the world for most cases in a single day. The omicron wave that hit Japan in the middle of January is also beginning to subside as its Rt drops below 1.0.
While South Korea saw the largest number of cases this week, with an unsurpassed trajectory, it was still Singapore that led in the total number of cases per capita (based on per million population) with 3360 new cases per million population vs South Korea’s 2710 new cases per million people.
Relative Joy 