Health Secretary Francisco Duque III (File photo from the Senate Public Relations and Information Bureau)
MANILA, Philippines — There are indications that COVID-19 infections nationwide may be on a downward trend, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said during the second taped briefing of the week with President Rodrigo Duterte that started airing late Wednesday night.
Duque showed the latest figure — 15,992 new infections — which is significantly lower than the over 20,000 cases recorded daily in past weeks.
“It appears that there’s a decrease in the new cases being recorded, which hopefully will continue so that we will have a reversal of the trend and see a decrease in cases,” Duque told Duterte in Filipino.
Metro Manila still has the most number of new cases, at 3,627, followed by the Calabarzon Region with 3,123 cases, Central Luzon with 1,549, Cavite province with 1,174, Quezon City with 1,015, and Rizal province with 678.
A surge in recoveries brought down the total number of cases from 171,142 on Tuesday to 162,580 on Wednesday, according to figures from the Department of Health.
A total of 24,059 patients were reported to have recovered from the disease, pushing the total recovery count to 2.217 million. However, the death of 154 patients meant that the death toll has risen to 37,228.
Still, Duque said that the country’s fatality figures are faring better, both at the global level and the Asean level, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
WHO ranked the Philippines as third among the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and 119th worldwide. Its COVID-19 deaths per million is at 333.
“This means we were able to keep down the case fatality rate even with a high number of COVID cases due to the Delta variant,” Duque said ni Filipino. “This is a testament that good care provided by our doctors whom we salute, along with the nurses and other healthcare workers.”
Since August, the Philippines — in particular, Metro Manila and other centers of business — has been having another surge in COVID-19 cases, this time brought by the more infectious Delta variant.
Despite COVID-19 vaccinations ramping up, new infections still ballooned to over 26,000 at one point, with the additional cases breaching the 20,000 mark several times.
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