Philippines’ number of new COVID-19 cases in a week up 22%

COVID-19 cases in the country have increased anew after a period of decline, with 17,891 infections recorded from September 19 to 25, 2022—22% higher than those logged the previous week.

According to the DOH’s weekly case bulletin, the cases recorded in the past week climbed up from the 14,707 new infections logged the week prior, September 12 to 18.

The daily case average for the recent week also increased to 2,556 from last week’s 2,101.

OCTA Research said Monday that the new COVID-19 infections in the National Capital Region (NCR) recorded on Sunday surpassed the peak of new cases in August, as most indicators were seen increasing.

A total of 242 additional verified COVID-19-related deaths were also belatedly reported in the past week. These deaths were reported from April 2021 to September 2022.

Of these deaths, 34 occurred in September 2022, one in January 2022, 59 in October 2021, 147 in September 2021, and one in April 2021.

Twenty-nine of these fatalities also occurred between September 12 to September 25 alone.

Data also showed that 790 severe and critical cases were admitted in hospitals due to COVID-19 as of September 25. This was 11% of the total COVID-19 admissions, according to DOH.

Of the 2,514 intensive care unit (ICU) beds, 576 or 22.9% were occupied. Meanwhile, 5,851 or 27.8% of the 21,078 non-ICU COVID-19 beds were in use.

Of the new cases recorded from September 19 to 25, there were two individuals tagged as new severe or critical cases. DOH said this was only 0.01% of the new cases reported for the week.

Vaccination update

Over 73 million Filipinos or 93.49% of the government’s target population are now fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to DOH.

Of this number, 119,850 were fully vaccinated from September 19 to 25.

Meanwhile, at least 6.8 million senior citizens or 78.36% of the target A2 population have also received their primary vaccine series.

The DOH also said that 19.2 million individuals have received their booster shots, of whom 328,452 were boosted in the same period.  —NB, GMA News