Coronavirus infections in Philippines rise to 13,597
MANILA, Philippines (Update 1, 4:56 p.m.) — The coronavirus disease has sickened 13,597 people in the Philippines as concerns grow on the potential surge in infections following the easing of quarantine measures.
After reporting new daily cases of over 200 for more than a week, the Department of Health on Friday afternoon confirmed 163 additional COVID-19 cases.
Majority of the additional infections were recorded in outbreak epicenter Metro Manila with 91 cases. Some 34% of the new cases were from Central Visayas, while 10% were reported elsewhere in the country.
The number of people who have recovered from the respiratory disease reached 3,092 with the addition of 92 more patients who have survived COVID-19.
But 11 more people died from the illness. This pushed the nation’s death toll to 857.
The DOH also reported that 2,236 healthcare workers have contracted COVID-19. Of the number, 1,086 medical frontliners have recovered, while 31 have died.
Currently, there are 31 testing laboratories nationwide. Latest data from the government showed that 247,239 people have been tested for the coronavirus in the country.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III clarified Thursday that the country is still dealing with the “first major wave of a sustained community transmission.” He made the pronouncement a day after he drew flak for saying the country is now experiencing a second wave of COVID-19 infections, which was contradicted by Malacañang and other medical experts.
Some 333,032 people have died out of more than 5.1 million confirmed COVID-19 infections worldwide.
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New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins says on Sunday that he had contracted COVID-19, testing positive at a key point in his flailing campaign for re-election.
Hipkins saYS on his official social media feed that he would need to isolate for up to five days -- less than two weeks before his country's general election.
The leader of the centre-left Labour Party said he started to experience cold symptoms on Saturday and had cancelled most of his weekend engagements. — AFP
The World Health Organization and US health authorities say Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown.
The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance "due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries", it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday.
So far, the variant has only been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States. — AFP
The World Health Organization says on Friday that the number of new COVID-19 cases reported worldwide rose by 80% in the last month, days after designating a new "variant of interest".
The WHO declared in May that Covid is no longer a global health emergency, but has warned that the virus will continue to circulate and mutate, causing occasional spikes in infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
In its weekly update, the UN agency said that nations reported nearly 1.5 million new cases from July 10 to August 6, an 80% increase compared to the previous 28 days. — AFP
The head of US intelligence says that there was no evidence that the COVID-19 virus was created in the Chinese government's Wuhan research lab.
In a declassified report, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) says they had no information backing recent claims that three scientists at the lab were some of the very first infected with COVID-19 and may have created the virus themselves.
Drawing on intelligence collected by various member agencies of the US intelligence community (IC), the ODNI report says some scientists at the Wuhan lab had done genetic engineering of coronaviruses similar to COVID-19. — AFP
Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Covid lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street when he was prime minister, a UK parliament committee ruled on Thursday.
The cross-party Privileges Committee said Johnson, 58, would have been suspended as an MP for 90 days for "repeated contempts (of parliament) and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process".
But he avoided any formal sanction by his peers in the House of Commons by resigning as an MP last week.
In his resignation statement last Friday, Johnson pre-empted publication of the committee's conclusions, claiming a political stitch-up, even though the body has a majority from his own party.
He was unrepentant again on Thursday, accusing the committee of being "anti-democratic... to bring about what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination".
Calling it "beneath contempt", he said it was "for the people of this to decide who sits in parliament, not Harriet Harman", the veteran opposition Labour MP who chaired the seven-person committee. — AFP
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