MANILA, Philippines — For the fourth day in a row and on the 138th day since the first implementation of enhanced community quarantine, the Department of Health logged a new record-high leap in its daily infection count, this time with a troubling 5,032 new cases of the coronavirus, bringing the national caseload to 103,185.
The record for single-day infections was broken four times this week. New cases were at 3,954 on Thursday, at 4,063 on Friday, and 4,963 on Saturday.
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Though a number of areas including Metro Manila have been on general community quarantine since the start of June to restart its economy, the health department asserts that the continuing influx in cases daily is due in part to heightened testing capabilities.
The health department's latest tally also brought with it 301 and 20 new recoveries and deaths, bringing their totals to 65,557 and 2,059, respectively.
Accounting for those who recovered from and succumbed to the new pathogen, the number of active cases in the country now stands at 35,569.
'Time-out needed'
Though a number of areas including Metro Manila have been on general community quarantine since the start of June to restart its economy, the health department asserts that the continuing influx in cases daily is due in part to heightened testing capabilities.
Medical professionals are calling on the government to implement another enhanced community quarantine for two weeks to give healthcare workers and frontliners a "time-out" and give the government time to recalibrate its approach.
The country's coronavirus curve is still steadily rising with thousands of new cases now being logged each day despite the capital's first ECQ and modified ECQ in Metro Manila lasting for 76 days in March. Some in the healthcare sector say it was wasted due to lapses on the part of the government in its social amelioration program and its militarist handling.
Among the government's new initiatives in "fighting" the microscopic virus is the ECQ-esque deployment of cops and barangay tanods in "supervising" an "intensified" crackdown on quarantine violators to, as Police Lt. Gen. Guillermo Eleazar says, "send a strong message to every member of the community that they should conform and adhere to the quarantine rules, or face the consequences of their complacency or hardheadedness."
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Otherwise, the Palace said, the "experiment" that is Metro Manila will have to wait on a possible vaccine, which the president indicated could come in December.
Sen. Cynthia Villar on Sunday said that government officials should work harder in the exercise of their functions amid the global outbreak, retracting an earlier statement that healthcare workers should be working harder to contain the spread of the new pathogen.
As it stands, the country is under the longest quarantine in the world and has, according to former task force adviser Dr. Tony Leachon, one of the fastest “acceleration” of cases in Southeast Asia where it still leads the region in the number of active cases.
— with a report from Ratziel San Juan