Job Manahan, ABS-CBN News
(UPDATE) — The Philippines on Thursday reported 8,276 new COVID-19 cases, as the capital region and 4 nearby provinces remain under stricter lockdown levels until mid-May.
Thursday's newly reported infections bring the country's cumulative total to 1,028,738 million, with 69,354 remaining as active cases, the latest bulletin of the Department of Health showed.
It is the 11th straight day that new cases counted fewer than 10,000. The Philippines' single-day tally had peaked at over record-15,000 on April 2.
The ABS-CBN Investigative and Research Group (IRG) noted that the number of active infections went up by 1,526 from Wednesday — 10 days since it started declining.
The number of active cases in the past few days has been adjusted for duplicates, according to the IRG.
Of those still recovering from the respiratory disease, 94.9 percent have mild symptoms, 1.6 percent are asymptomatic, 1.4 percent are severely ill, while 1.1 percent are critically ill.
Fatalities due to the virus rose to 17,145 after the DOH logged 114 new COVID-related deaths.
Except for April 26 and April 27, the country has been posting more than 100 fresh fatalities for the past week.
Sixty-eight cases initially tagged as recovered also turned out to be deaths after DOH's final validation.
Total recoveries, meanwhile, increased by 6,636 to 942,239, accounting for 91.6 percent of the country's overall recorded cases.
The new recoveries for the day is considered the lowest announced in 12 days, during which the DOH started the daily recovery tagging, according to the ABS-CBN IRG.
New recoveries announced from April 18 to 28 ranged from 9,266 to 72,607, the research unit pointed out.
Out of 49,003 individuals who underwent testing for COVID-19 on April 27, some 16.9 percent were found positive for it.
A testing laboratory failed to submit data on time, according to the health agency.
Thirty-three duplicates, 24 of which were recoveries, have been removed from the overall tally, said the agency.
President Rodrigo Duterte extended the modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) in Metro Manila and surrounding provinces Rizal, Laguna, Bulacan, and Cavite — so-called the NCR Plus bubble — until May 14, noting the healthcare capacity in these areas.
The new wave of virus infections pushed hospitals in the bubble near the breaking point in late March, even prompting the government to distribute modular tents and send medical workers from low-risk areas.
While the health department said the virus transmission rate partially slowed down in recent weeks, monitoring would still be needed.
The OCTA Research forecasts the number of daily COVID-19 cases in Metro Manila to decline to 2,800 in two weeks' time.
The Philippines has so far been able to administer about 1.8 million COVID-19 vaccine doses as of Tuesday.
The government aims to vaccinate 70 million of its 108 million population to achieve herd immunity and safely reopen the economy.
Nearly 60 million are still battling COVID-19 worldwide, data from US-based Johns Hopkins University showed.
The virus has so far killed 3.1 million people globally, while almost 87 million people have recuperated from it, according to the running tally.
https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/04/29/21/philippines-covid19-cases-update-april292021
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