News Roundup 09 August 2021
Aug 09, 2021 • 3 min Read
DOH logs 8,900 new COVID-19 cases | PHILSTAR.COM – The Department of Health on Monday said 8,900 more Filipinos contracted the COVID-19, with the country’s total count now at 1,667,714. This marks the fifth straight day of reporting more than 8,000 new infections. Today’s numbers saw active cases up by 946 from 77,516 on August 8. DOH said all laboratories submitted testing results.
- Active cases: 78,480 or 4.7% of the total
- Recoveries:7,937, bringing the number to 1,560,106
- Deaths: 6, or now 29,128 in total
Philippines now ‘high risk’ for COVID-19 amid Delta threat | PHILSTAR.COM – The Philippines is currently at “high risk” for COVID-19 as coronavirus infections continue to rise, the Department of Health said Monday. Less than two weeks ago, the Philippines was at “moderate” risk classification. In a briefing, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the country recorded a positive two-week growth rate of 47%. The average daily attack rate (ADAR) from July 26 to August 8 was 7.20 cases per 100,000 population. An area is considered high risk if its ADAR—or the number of new cases over a two-week period, divided by the population there—is 7 and above. The average daily cases in the Philippines jumped to 8,695 per day from August 1 to 7. In the previous week, the average was 6,498. “Nationally, our case classification is now at high risk,” Vergeire said.
236 health facilities, including 25 in NCR, in ‘critical risk’ utilization | INQUIRER.NET – A total of 236 healthcare facilities, including 25 hospitals in Metro Manila, are currently classified as “critical risk” in terms of utilization, in view of the new surge in COVID-19 cases in the country, the Department of Health (DOH) said Monday. This means these facilities’ isolation, ward, and intensive unit care beds, as well as mechanical ventilators, are over 85% occupied already, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said. “Nationwide, ang ating healthcare utilization rate (HCUR) ay 56% but looking at it granularly, we see 236 facilities nationwide ay critical na and 25 of these are in the National Capital Region,” she said in an online media briefing. (Nationwide, our HCUR is 56% but granularly, there are 236 facilities that are already in critical level, including 25 in NCR.) To augment human resources, Vergeire said the health department has been hiring health workers in the past four months, totaling to 4,851. This is 97% of the target number to be hired according to the needs based per region. However, the DOH is set to recompute the number of manpower needed in light of the COVID-19 Delta variant threat. Vergeire said the Philippines is now under “high risk” of COVID-19 amid the spike in cases since mid-July. The country saw a 47% two-week growth rate with a high risk average daily attack rate of 7.20 cases per 100,000 population, she said.
Opposition in a ‘better place’ today, Robredo says; ‘people more courageous’ | Manila Bulletin – Vice President Leni Robredo believes that the opposition, which she leads, is in a “better place” now as compared to 2018 and 2019 when no one from the Liberal Party’s (LP) Otso Diretso candidates won against the administration’s senatorial bets. The vice president said that back in 2018 and 2019, the opposition was “shocked and awed” by the present administration. “It (was) not as fortified as I would have wanted it to be, but we are in a better place now compared to 2019 or 2018,” she said during a podcast guesting on Wake Up With Jim and Saab. “Parang may (There’s like a) shock and awe factor that a lot of those in the opposition either jumped or decided just to keep quiet. Pero ngayon, napapansin ko (But now, I noticed that) people are getting more vocal. People are more willing to sit down and talk unlike before,” Robredo added. Even though “2022 is just around the corner,” she is not losing hope that the opposition will unite and that “people will be more courageous.” “More people will take a stand and more people will be willing to sit down and talk and explore how to unify for the country,” Robredo said. The vice president, though still mulling her own presidential run, suspended exploratory talks with other members of the opposition because of the two-week enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in Metro Manila and other provinces.
