LUCENA CITY – Quezon province recorded an alarming 308 new COVID-19 patients on Friday that almost eclipsed the record-high 309 single-day tally four months ago.
In its 5 p.m. bulletin issued on January 21, the Integrated Provincial Health Office (IPHO) showed that Sariaya town topped the list with 45 new cases followed by Tayabas City with 41. Lucena City, the provincial capital, has 19 new infections.
Friday’s tally also listed 95 recoveries and one fatality.
On September 14 last year, the IPHO also listed 307 new cases during the height of the highly-transmissible and fatal Delta variant.
Quezon, which remains under Alert Level 3 until the end of the mont,h has 1,805 active cases.
From January 1 to 21, Quezon recorded 2,900 new COVID-19 cases, an alarming increase from the December tally of 64 and 211 in November. The province had only nine active cases on December 22 last year.
As of January 22, out of 41 municipalities in the province, the towns with active virus carriers jumped to 37 from only six on December 27.
Dr. Tiong Eng Roland Tan, IPHO officer-in-charge, reported that as of January 19, the province had no confirmed COVID-19 cases of the highly contagious Omicron variant.
Quezon logged 30,728 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic broke out, with 27,426 recoveries and 1,497 deaths.