It was clearly a good week, except for the slight bump up of cases yesterday 04.03.2022.

The Health Agency announces a total of 2679 new cases for the week of March 28-April 3, 2022. This number is only 2% lower than the previous week, putting the 7-day average to 382 cases a day (due to the double number of daily cases yesterday).

Of the 329 deaths added the past week, 116 (35.3%) occurred in the month of March. The rest were backlogs from March 2021 to February 2022.

ICU bed and non-ICU bed utilization remain at very low risk, while there are still 692 cases that are severe or critical in category admitted to the hospital.

Vaccination coverage of the over-all target population stands at 73.47%, with less than half a million getting fully vaccinated last week and a little more than 300,000 getting a booster or additional dose.

The 690 cases yesterday April 03, 2022 were mostly backlogs. Only 328 were recent cases.

Today, the Health Agency announces 276 new cases and 22 added deaths.

The NCR owned 82 of the cases today, with four LGUs reporting double digits. This was led by City of Manila 14, Caloocan City13, Pasay City 12, and Quezon City 11. The rest were single digits with 5 LGUs reporting zero covid. The LGUs with zero covid today are: Mandaluyong, Muntinlupa, Navotas, San Juan and Pateros.

Out side of NCR, the following provinces had double digit numbers: Batangas 16, Laguna 13 and Cavite 10. Iloilo had 10 (7 province, 3 city), while Cebu had 18 (7 city, 11 province). Misamis Occidental is the only province in Mindanao with double digits at 11.

The shocker for the Sunday data was the 690 new cases and 19 deaths today.

Almost 50% of the cases are from NCR.

Leading the pack was Quezon City with 62 cases. There are 11 of 17 LGUs with double digits. They are: Pasay City 43, City of Manila 42, Makati 35, Parañaque 28, Pasig 25, Taguig 18, Caloocan 17, Las Piñas and Mandaluyong 11, and Valenzuela 10. The remaining LGUs had single digits and no LGU had zero case today.

Outside of NCR, the following provinces/HUCs had double digits: Cavite 43, Laguna 20, Rizal 14, Batangas 11, Bulacan 27, Bataan 11, Iloilo 19 (11 province, 8 city), Cebu 25 (city 12, province 13), Isabela 12, Davao City 13, and Zamboanga City 12.

The question is – are the numbers up or is this backlog being reported? Only the Department of Health has the answers.

THE WEEK IN REVIEW

The week in review starts with a good note for the Philippines as the 7-day average of cases is at 340 cases/day or 3.05 cases per million population. The reproduction rate is stable at 0.76 (+/- 0.05), but needs to continually stay lower in order to see a more rapid decline in cases. Notice that majority of the daily positive cases in the Philippines are from the National Capital Region, which remains the epicenter of the pandemic. While more than 95% of the eligible population is vaccinated in Mega Manila, the daily cases are mainly from this highly dense region. 30-40% of the daily national cases are from here. The

The death toll, while lower this week compared to last week is marred by backlog reports of deaths from August to November 2021 – when delta variant struck the nation. Note that the death reports do not reflect current death cases any longer.

Among countries in East Asian, there is an over-all declining number in daily cases. South Korea, which hit more than 600,000 cases is now seeing an average of 300,000 cases as their reproduction rate hits 0.87.

It is, however, China, that is seeing more cases to date. The 7-day average of China is at 6500 cases a day. Note that China officially reports cases as COVID19 confirmed cases ONLY if the patients are symptomatic at the time of testing. In worldometers.info, that’s the information that is posted. In ourworldindata.org, the data includes ALL cases – both symptomatic and asymptomatic at the time of testing. China is forgetting that patients at the time of testing can progress to symptomatic status later on. For consistency and transparency purposes, all who test positive for the virus should included as a case count – symptomatic or not.

On a per capita basis, South Korea lead with an average of 6000 cases per million population/day, China is at 4.5 cases per million population/day. This rate for China is high, considering that the population of the country is at 1.4B people. Indonesia has dramatically reserved its omicron surge as quickly as the Philippines and has the best effective reproduction number among all the countries in East Asia.

With Thailand’s reproduction rate at 1.11, it now has overtaken the Philippines in global rank of COVID-19 cases. The Philippines goes down one rung and is at number 30 in the world. With Indonesia’s Rt at 0.54, the number of cases are expected to decline further and more rapidly in the subsequent week.

The Health Agency announces 376 new cases and 26 added deaths today, with a 7-day average of 2.0% for positivity tests.

The downside is that as the cases in the country continue to slow down, the NCR accounts for the bulk. Today, the NCR had 149 cases (40%).

Five LGUs posted double digits, with the City of Manila leading the pack with 30 cases. Quezon City and Caloocan had 20 apiece, while Pasay City reported 18 and Taguig City 14. On the flip side is that, while the remaining LGUs in Mega Manila continue to report single numbers, Mandaluyong and Pateros report zero covid cases today.

Outside of NCR, the following provinces/HUCs (highly urbanized cities) report double digits: Cavite 18, Rizal 15, Bulacan 14, Bataan 12, Iloilo 30 (19 province, 11 city), and Cebu 10 (7 province, 3 city). Other areas report single to zero cases.

No, it’s true. The NCR continues to account for over 30% (with 33% today) of the national cases.

The Health Agency announces 356 new cases and 49 added deaths today. The good news is that the 7-day positivity rate drops to 2.0%.

NCR had 119 cases with three LGUs reporting double digits. This was led by Quezon City 22, City of Manila 19, and Makati 13. All other LGUs have single digit numbers, with Pateros, as the lone LGU in Mega Manila continuing its zero covid streak.

Outside of NCR, the following provinces/HUCs had double digits: Cavite 21, Rizal 19, Batangas 11, Iloilo 10 (all province, city had zero), and Cebu 21 (8 province, 13 city). The other regions/provinces/HUCs had single digit numbers or zero cases.

The Health Agency continues to report low cases with 327 new cases today. The positivity rate is at a low 2.1% as well. However, the number of added deaths are quite disturbing as there are more deaths being reconciled now compared to the past months with 124 added today.

NCR owned 118 (36%) of today’s cases. Five LGUs had double digits, with the City of Manila topping it with 34 cases. The rest of the LGUs with double figures were: Quezon City 17, Caloocan and Pasay City with 12 apiece, and Parañaque 11. The rest of the LGUs in NCR had single digit numbers with 2 LGUs reporting zero covid – Pateros and Navotas.

Outside of NCR, the following provinces or HUCs had double digits: Cavite 20, Laguna 14, Iloilo 23 (province 16, city 7), and Cebu 14 (province 7, city 7). The rest of the country had low single digits or zero covid reports.

The Health Agency reports 312 new cases with a 7-day average of 2.1% positivity rate. That’s the good news.

The sad news is the 87 added deaths today, which most likely are delayed reports.

The NCR accounted for 36% of the total cases for the day. Three LGUs in NCR report double digits – Quezon City 25, City of Manila 20 and Caloocan City 12. The rest report single digit numbers, with Pateros continuing its zero covid streak.

Outside of the NCR, the following provinces and other HUCs had double digit cases: Rizal 10, Batangas 11, Iloilo 19 (15 province, 4 city), General Santos City 15

With a positivity rate of 2.5%, the Health Agency announces 246 new cases and 8 added deaths. The NCR leads (as always) today’s count with 89 new cases.

Only three LGUs in NCR reported double digits (and low numbers). Quezon City led with 13 cases, followed by Caloocan and Pasay City with 11 each. The City of Manila reported only 4 new cases today. Pateros was the only LGU that had zero covid.

Outside of NCR, double digit numbers came from: Cavite 15, Rizal 11, Bulacan 13, and Iloilo 14 (12 province, 2 city). The rest of the country had very low numbers with many areas reporting either low single digit numbers (<5 cases) or zero covid.

The summary for the week of March 21-27 continued to show the Philippines at very low risk for COVID19.

(1) Healthcare utilization is down to less than 17% for non ICU beds and at 15% for ICU utilization.

(2) Vaccination rate is slightly up with around 73% of the target population vaccinated and more than 75% of the A2 (senior citizens) vaccinated. More than 65.6M Filipinos residing in the PH are fully vaccinated, with a little more than 833,000 added the past 7 days. However, the booster vaccinations have not picked up with less than 300,000 getting the added booster vaccine the past week.

(3) There were 2726 new cases or a 7 days average of 389 daily cases reported from March 21-27, 2022. This was 24% lower than the cases reported the previous week. However, the decline in cases has slowed down. The good news, there were no severe and critical cases reported the past week. The bad news, 752 death were added (verified is the term used by the Health Agency) the past 7 days.

(4) Based on the Department of Health, of the 752 deaths, 107 occurred in march, 105 in February and 52 in January 2022. This is 35% of the total deaths reported for the past week. The remaining deaths were backlogs from August 2020 to December 2021. The majority of the deaths were from August to October 2021 with 326 (43.4%) occurring on those months alone. This was the start and peak of the delta wave in the country.

The Health Agency begins the week with 387 new cases and 15 added deaths. Of 15,784 individuals tested last March 27, 436 tested positive (2.8% positivity rate). The National Capital Region owned 40% or 156 of the cases today.

There were 8 LGUs in NCR that had double digits. They are: City of Manila 31, Pasay City 26, Makati 19, Quezon City 15, Taguig 14, Las Piñas 12, and Caloocan and Parañaque with 10 apiece.

Outside of NCR, the following provinces had double digits: Cavite 28, Rizal 11, Iloilo 16 (province 13, city 3), and Cebu 19 (province 15, city 4).

The Health Agency announces 330 new cases and 131 added deaths to the COVID 19 data today.

The NCR accounted for a 25% (unusually low) share of today’s cases with 84. Only three LGUs had double digit numbers in the NCR – City of Manila 22, Quezon City 14, and Makati 11. The rest had single digit cases with Navotas and Pateros reporting zero covid.

Outside of NCR, the following provinces reported double digits today: Cavite 13, Laguna 12, Rizal 20, Iloilo 25 (19 province, 6 city), and Cebu 20 (9 city, 11 province). The rest of the country reported single digit or zero covid cases.

THE WEEK IN REVIEW

While the new cases continue to decline in the Philippines, it has slowed down. And has most likely reached a trough – or a level of numbers that the country will continue to report daily.

What does this mean?

The number of COVID-19 cases will remain at the range of 350-450 as our lowest possible numbers. Notice that the reproduction rate is up at 0.77 (+/- 0.05). If Rt is at 1.0, that means that whatever number the cases are, they remain the same already. But 1.0 is not an ideal number to be at. To control the viral spread, we need to ideally remain at 0.5. This value provides us leverage in suppressing any unusual bump up in cases in the immediate future.

The graphs below show us the average cases (7-day moving) in the country at 432 per day (around 4 per million population). Several factors affect the low cases, including the non-testing of symptomatic patients (they simply go into isolation) and not contact tracing any longer.

With the backlogs on death reports being reconciled, the Philippines recorded two consecutive days of deaths >200, putting the 7-day average at 118.86 (or 1 death per million population).

The figure below shows the effective reproduction rate of COVID-19 in the country. Notice that it is now up at 0.77 (+/- 0.05). This rise explains the very slow decline in cases (almost reaching a trough) and that the country needs to work harder at continuously pushing the Rt lower (preferably 0.5 and below). Otherwise, the decline will not be sustainable especially with current campaign period and the upcoming national presidential elections.

Here’s a look at how other countries in East Asia are doing.

Most of the countries, except for China are now seeing a decline in new cases, with South Korea averaging 350,000 new daily cases and Vietnam 200,000. On a per capita basis, South Korea continues to lead with around 6900 cases per million population, followed by Vietnam with 2000 per million, Hong Kong with 1790 per million and Singapore with 1670 per million population.

Back to effective reproduction rate. Notice how quickly the Rt in other countries are now coming down. While the Philippines may have been the darling of East Asia in the control of the pandemic, other countries continue the decline in Rt, except for the PH which is up at 0.77 from a previous week of 0.53. This simply translates to the fact that the decreasing cases has slowed down significantly and that all efforts at bringing it lower should be exhausted, particularly in the minimum public health standards and the push to receiving booster shots when available and recommended for a particular group or age.

If there is one take home message this week in review emphasizes, it is the volatile condition of this pandemic. And the fact that 1/3 of the country’s total cases are from the NCR, the epicenter in the Philippines. The share of the NCR is always larger as the cases continue to decrease.

The Health Agency reports 437 new cases and added 53 deaths to the count today.

While the numbers remain at the 400 level, the share of NCR is up at 37% (normally around 1/3 of the total daily share belongs to NCR) or 161 cases.

The national 7-day average positivity rate is down to 2.2%.

In the NCR, four LGUs report 20 and more cases. This is led by the City of Manila with 25, Parañaque with 20, and Quezon City and Pasay City with 20 apiece. Caloocan City had 19, while Makati 14 cases. The rest of the LGUs had single digit numbers, with Pateros the only LGU to report zero covid today.

Outside of NCR the following provinces had more than 20 cases: Cavite province 29, Iloilo 32 (20 for the province and 12 for the city), and Cebu 20 (12 for the city and 8 for the province).