The Health Agency announces 1099 new cases with 41 added deaths. As it is a Monday, the positivity rate is reset and is lower at 10.3% (still higher than the 5% threshold acceptable by the WHO). NCR owned 25.6% of the cases today with 281.

Only 10 LGUs in NCR reported double digits led by Quezon City 63, Taguig 33, Makati 28, Manila and Parañaque 25, Mauntinlupa 23, Pasig 21, Caloocan 17, Pasay City 13 and Las Piñas 10. Two LGUs had zero COVID today – San Juan and Pateros.

Davao del Sur led the haul in the country with 106 cases (with 34 coming from Davao City). This was followed by Cebu with 78, Cavite with 66 and Iloilo with 60.

It’s been almost three years since the first SARS-CoV-2 case was reported out of China.

While the pandemic had put the world at an economic and medical crisis, things have petered out slowly. However, with evolving variants and sub variants, we are not out of the woods yet. In the first year of the pandemic, the spread of the original Wuhan variant had far reaching effects. The second year was chaotic as original variant had mutated to produce the alpha, beta, gamma, and delta variants of concern. It closed 2021 with South Africa announcing the variant Omicron. The year 2022 would be a sub variant year as Omicron had produced children and grand children from the progeny. The good news is that the offsprings of Omicron would produce mild symptoms in majority of the people and that vaccines remained protective at making the disease severe. The bad news is that with the new sub variants, treatment with monoclonal antibodies have become more challenging as immune escape became the hall mark of the grandchildren of Omicron.

As of October 23, 2022, the World Health Organization announces the continued decline in cases globally. The number of cases had decreased by 15% during the week of October 17-23, 2022 (vs. the previous week). New weekly deaths also declined by 13% (vs. the previous week) with more than 8500 deaths. As of October 23, more than 624 million confirmed cases of COVID have been recorded (with some of them as repeat cases)). Of these cases, >1% have died.

On a regional levels, there is an overall decline in cases except for the Region of the Americas (+2%) and Eastern Mediterranean Region (+9%).

At the country level, highest new weekly cases were from Germany, France, China, USA and Italy. Highest numbers of new weekly deaths came from the USA, Russian Federation, Italy, France and China.

The World Health continued to warn against taking the data at face value. Instead, cases and deaths should be interpreted with caution as several countries have been changing strategies at testing, resulting in lower overall numbers of tests done and reported.

Meanwhile, the Health Agency announces 1370 new cases with 12.3% positivity and 38 added deaths today. The NCR owned 329 of these cases.

In NCR, Quezon City led the haul with 90 cases. All other LGUs had less than 50 cases: Manila 40, Las Piñas 26, Makati and Taguig 22 each, Pasay City 21, Parañaque 16, Navotas 15, Mandaluyong and Valenzuela 12 each, Pasig, Caloocan, Muntinlupa, and Marikina with 11 each.

In the provinces, the following provinces had more than 50 but less than 100 cases: Davao del Sur 82, Laguna 78, Iloilo 76, Cebu 72 and Cavite 69.

Provinces that saw slightly higher numbers today were: Pangasinan 30, Baguio 30 and Camarines Sur 22.

With the long weekend, the PH should continue to see lower cases the next few days and revert to regular trends on Thursday, November 3.

As Typhoon Paeng slammed many parts of the Philippines, with a direct trajectory to Metro Manila, the Health Agency announced 1391 new cases with 36 added deaths and a positivity rate that has not moved at 12.5%. Around 29% of the day’s cases belonged to NCR.

The province with the highest haul was Cavite with 78 followed by Cebu 68, Davao del Sur 67, Laguna 66, Iloilo 65, Rizal 57 and Negros Occidental 56. All other provinces had less than 50 cases.

In NCR, Quezon City continued the haul with 75 cases followed by Manila with 54. The following LGUs had less than 50 cases: Taguig 41, Pasig 32, Las Piñas 29, Makati 26, Parañaque 25, Muntinlupa 23, Valenzuela 19, Marikina and Mandaluyong 17 each, Pasay City 15 and Caloocan 14.

[Sorry for the late post. There was no electricity till late in the evening due to the typhoon. Stay safe everyone!]

The Health Agency announces 1551 new cases with 12.5% positivity and 38 added deaths.

Cases are up in the Mindanao Region especially Northern Mindanao and Davao Region. In the Visayas area, cases are up in Central and Western Visayas. NCR owned only 23% of the cases today.

The haul today was led by Cavite with 106 cases followed by Laguna with 94, Iloilo 90 and Davao del Sur with 84. Cebu had 69 cases.

In NCR, Quezon City continued to lead with 73 cases followed by Manila with 43, Las Piñas 39, Muntinlupa 36, Makati 27, Pasig 24, Parañaque 22, Taguig 20, Pasay City 18, Caloocan 14, Mandaluyong 13 and Marikina 12.

The Health Agency announces 1379 new cases, 12.5% positivity and 38 added deaths today. NCR continued to see declining cases as it owned only 23.6% of the cases for the day.

The cases today were led by Cebu with 97 followed by Cavite with 88, Iloilo 74, Pangasinan 54 and Bulacan 53.

In NCR, only Quezon City reported more than 50 cases with 75 cases today. Ten other LGUs reported low double digits: Manila 41, Taguig 30, Parañaque 29, Makati 28, Las Piñas 27, Pasay City 16, Pasig and Valenzuela 14, Marikina 12 and Caloocan 11.

The Health Agency announces 1121 new cases, 12.5% positivity rate and 37 added deaths. The National Capital Region is seeing lower cases (and while under reported) with 318 new cases today.

In Mega Manila, there were only 11 of the 17 LGUs that had double digits, led by Quezon City with 92. All other LGUs had less than 50 cases apiece – Manila 37, Makati 26, Parañaque 23, Pasay City and Muntinlupa with 21 each, Pasig 20, Las Piñas 19, Valenzuela 11 and Caloocan 10.

Provinces with more than 50 but less than 100 cases today were: Iloilo 70, Negros Occidental 56, Cavite 55 and Laguna 53.

Two areas in North Luzon saw rising cases today – Baguio City 29 and Benguet 21.

The Philippines slides down to triple digit cases today, the low Tuesday with 943 new cases reported by the Health Agency. There were 32 added deaths and positivity is at 12.1%. The NCR owned 26.3% of the cases with Quezon City reporting 56 cases today.

The province of Cavite led the haul with 86 cases followed by Davao del Sur 54 and Bulacan 52.

In NCR, those with double digits were: Manila 32, Marikina and Las Piñas 16, Muntinlupa and Pasig 15, Parañaque 14, Caloocan 13, Taguig and Mandaluyong 12 and Pasay City 11.

Remember – these numbers are under reported as fewer people are testing by PCR. The positivity rate is still >10% and the disproportional numbers with the parameters on new cases, positivity rate and deaths is disruptive data.

The Health Agency announces 22% lower cases with 11,995 new cases from October 17-23, 2022 compared to the 15,314 cases for the week of October 10-16, 2022. While this was the good news, the bad news was that the number of deaths increased from 251 the previous week to 272 during the past week with 10% of them occurring between October 10-23 (or considered ‘fresh’, by the government).

Healthcare utilization is also lower, reflecting the milder presentation of COVID-19 among the reported cases. Non-ICU bed utilization was down to 26.4% versus 26.8% the previous week, while ICU bed use was at 23.1% the past week versus 25% the previous week. Severe and critical admission was also down from 690 to 650. Positivity rate average ended at 13.6% for the week of October 17-23, better than the 14.9% positivity rate for the week of October 10-16. Nevertheless, these are still considered high rates and the number of cases in the country (and in many countries around the world) are highly under reported.

There were 1334 new cases and 35 added deaths today. Positivity rate is reset to 12.1% today. NCR owned 26.7% of the cases today as the provinces are now reporting rising cases,

Quezon City continued to haul the cases as the only LGU with triple digits – 101 cases – today. Other LGUs in NCR reported low double digits: Makati 36, Manila 35, Parañaque 28, Taguig 25, Pasig 24, Las Piñas 22, Caloocan 18, Mandaluyong and Marikina 14 each, Muntinlupa 13, Pasay City 11 and Valenzuela 10.

The provinces that had more than 50 but less than 100 cases were: Cavite 70, Iloilo 76, Cebu 70, Laguna 62, Bulacan 60 and Davao del Sur 56.

Will we see less than quadruple digits tomorrow?

The Health Agency announces 1585 new cases with 37 added deaths and positivity rate of 13.6%. NCR owned 29.3% of the cases today with 465 cases.

Only Quezon City had triple digits in the nation with 115 cases and only 11 had double digit cases in Mega Manila. Those with double digits were: Manila 51, Makati and Taguig 42 each, Pasig 37, Caloocan 29, Parañaque 27, Marikina 24, Pasay City 22, Las Piñas 21, Mandaluyong and Muntinlupa 15 each.

Provinces with more than 50 but less than 100 cases were: Cavite 99, Rizal 62, Laguna 58, Bulacan 63, Iloilo 84, Davao del Sur 80.

Those provinces with higher cases today were: Sarangani 30 and Maguindanao with 17 cases.

THE WEEK IN REVIEW

Singapore took center stage the past two weeks as it saw rising cases (which are steadily declining) with Omicron XBB sub variant creating a noisy surge in the tiny nation south of the Philippines. While Taiwan had the most number of cases, Singapore and Hong Kong quickly overtook Japan and South Korea this week, to land in second and third spots in terms of number of cases per capita (per million population) among the East Asian nations.

The reproduction rate of Singapore is highest in the region at 1.23 (+/- 0.05), which would mean that they’re not going to see a quick decline in new cases yet. Most of the countries in East Asia will be seeing the same 7-day average number of cases (including the Philippines) as under reporting is an issue in developing countries. Note that it is impossible to have only and average of 1750 daily cases with a positivity rate of 15% and be precise about the numbers. A positivity rate of 15% means that for every 100 people tested, 15 will likely be positive. And with low testing using RT-PCR, many places are not capturing the magnitude of cases.

Notice also the discrepancy in cases to deaths ratio in the Philippines. The Philippines averages around 40 deaths a day, with around 2000 daily new cases, this would put the daily mortality rate at 2%. One of the highest in the region.

The Health Agency announces 1702 new cases with 36 added deaths and a positivity rate of 13.9%. As the cases in NCR continued to fall this week, the cases now shift to the provinces.

NCR owned 29.6% of the cases for the day with 503 added.

The top haulers for the day were: Davao del Sur 111 , Cavite 107, Iloilo 102, and Quezon City 100.

In Mega Manila, double digits came from Manila 64, Parañaque 44, Taguig 42, Makati 36, Pasay City and Las Piñas 29 each, Pasig 28, Valenzuela 25, Caloocan 23, Muntinlupa and Marikina 22 each, Mandaluyong 21 and San Juan 12.

In the provinces, those with more than 50 but less than 100 cases were: Laguna 68, Rizal 61, Cebu 86, Bulacan 82.