News Roundup 17 April 2021
Apr 17, 2021 • 3 min Read
With 203,710 active COVID-19 cases, Philippines sees record high for 2nd day in a row | PHILSTAR.COM – The Philippines on Saturday recorded 11,101 additional COVID-19 cases, bringing the total number of infections to 926,052.
- Active cases: 203,710 or 22% of the total
- Recoveries: 799, pushing total to 706,532
- Deaths: 72, bringing total to 15,810
Robredo goes on quarantine as close-in security gets COVID-19 | PHILSTAR.COM – Vice President Leni Robredo said Saturday that she will be quarantining after her close-in security tested positive for the coronavirus. Robredo said she was supposed to leave for Bicol to pay respects to a staffer’s mom who died due to cancer, but had to postpone this trip after she was informed by a contact tracer that one of her security aides contracted COVID-19. “I was with him in the car, in the elevator, and in the office almost everyday this week,” she said. “We have regular surveillance antigen testing in the office and we do follow very strict health protocols but because I was a very close contact, I need to do the required quarantine and do an RT-PCR test after my quarantine.” Robredo and her staff had also quarantined in October 2020 after exposure to someone who tested positive for the coronavirus. The vice president has been busy augmenting the administration’s pandemic response through her own initiatives, including a free teleconsulting service, which she also manned as a chat operator, and a mobile laboratory which conducts COVID-19 testing and x-rays.
OCTA member hopes NCR’s COVID-19 reproduction number goes down to 1.0 by Wed | INQUIRER.NET – A member of the OCTA Research group that tracks COVID-19 trends in the country hopes that the coronavirus reproduction number in Metro Manila may go down to 1.0 on Wednesday or Thursday. “Hopefully by Wednesday or Thursday makita natin na 1.0 and I hope na mas mababa na sya sa 1.0 by Thursday,” Dr. Butch Ong said at the Laging Handa public briefing on Saturday. (Hopefully by Wednesday or Thursday, we can see that the reproduction number would slow down to 1.0 and I hope it will even go down to below 1.0 on Thursday.) Reproduction number is the average number of persons who may be infected by a COVID-19 positive individual. A lower reproduction number indicates there is less transmission of the virus. Based on OCTA’s monitoring report released on Friday, the reproduction number in Metro Manila is 1.16 from April 9 to 15 as the group noted a downward trend of new COVID-19 cases in Pasay, Manila, Marikina, Taguig, and Mandaluyong.
Work goes on for Robredo while she’s in self-isolation | Manila Bulletin – Vice presidential spokesman Ibarra Gutierrez said on Saturday, April 17, that Vice President Leni Robredo continues to do her job even after her close-in security detail tested positive for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). In a statement, Gutierrez noted Robredo was tested for COVID-19 on Friday, April 17, before her scheduled trip to her home province of Bicol, which came out negative. “Her results came back negative, but one of the security officers that was supposed to accompany her, and with whom she had been in contact with, tested positive,” he said. “Following protocol, she has gone into quarantine for the mandated seven-day period, after which she will again be tested,” Gutierrez added. The vice president was supposed to leave for Bicol to pay her last respects to her friend, Osy Rivera, who died of cancer.
