Raffin

Great to read you are a certified recovery. Your lack of pre-existing conditions was obviously a big factor plus living in Marikina a city getting praise for its covid response. I remember some months ago reading that the mayor started their own lab and they have therefore been able to do a lot of mass testing.
Any idea how you might have contracted the virus?

Bealinehx

I have no idea. The days when I probably contracted the virus. my movements where limited to a radius of 800 metres from the condo. I only visited two supermarkets and a pizza take out. Possibly I was lax in hand washing protocols.
My wife is a midwife and was cleared after two weeks but had to suffer the total lockdown. So yesterday we ventured out to take care of outstanding financial business, Needless to say we now have a very strict hand washing regime and use disposable gloves to decant items brought into the apartment.

Yes Marikina is a very good place to live in. You may remember that the opening of the purpose built lab was not approved by DOH for three weeks. Local rumours have it that Duque was miffed because he didn't headline it. Only in the Philippines where pomposity reins supreme.

Raffin

Yesterday nearly another 2.5k new infections nationally...87% of them recent. Just 37% of them from the NCR, 887 with 84% of them recent. From Calabarzon there were 573, 85% recent. Cavite had 201 and Rizal 147.

All 136 labs reported. But the latest testing data shows only about 28k individuals tested on the 29th September....another low figure. With daily positivity around 8.5% compared to well above 10% a month ago some fall is justified, but we are still well above WHO recommended levels and the fall off seems steep from the peak on September 10 when over 42k were done.

Deaths 58 with 20 from the NCR and 16 from W Viisayas. A backlog of 12 back from August in the NCR. Again recoveries to deaths...14 yesterday!

738 severe and 1,686 critical patients.

Cases nationwide reported for September were 29% less than in August .but still 66% greater than in July. So we are on a a shallow but not yet firmly established downward trend in our first wave. Within that overall picture the NCR is doing better but some provinces around Manila are not. Laguna has the most cases since the start of the pandemic but Cavite with nearly 6k cases in September is catching up fast. Not surprising as the province has many industrial areas and most of all is more closely linked to Manila. Many commute daily to Manila from new residential areas

Bealinehx

I'm sure that those in charge of managing the pandemic are taking note of the rapidly deteriorating rate of infection in Europe. In general we so called First Worlders are an undisciplined lot.

Raffin

Yes, but the First Worlders or near in Asia,.Singapore, S Korea, Taiwan are also disciplined. In each country they dealt well with their first waves and have had small second waves.

Raffin

Again under 2.5k new infections reported with just 7 labs not reporting. Overall 83% recent. The NCR had 930 so 38% of the total, Calabarzon with 589 contributing 24%. Cavite alone with 238. So Manila and Calabarzon together ,,,it seems sensible to consider this as a region...made up 62%
Things look better for the NCR as only 78% of cases were recent. One case was resurrected from March!

Deaths were 59 nationally with 26 from the NCR. Again 18 were late reported back from August! Probably linked to 17 recoveries which have been removed from the list. There must be some doubt there at present as usually the DOH will admit some or all were really deaths.

Still over 2,400 cases seriously ill from covid.

Testing rose to around 37k a couple of days ago so perhaps we can be a little more confident of a modest downward trend becoming established and of an improvement in Manila:



Looking at the International table of cases the Philippines has now overtaken Pakistan to get up 20th position. Whether we will overtake Italy is less clear as, in common with other European countries, it seems to be starting a second wave, with its latest new case number about the same as ours. Pakistan has double the population and is testing at less than half our level per million. Nevertheless this is the only data many people around the world look at.

Raffin

B...if you do some searching as I did some weeks ago when we discussed surface transmission you will see the general opinion is that it's difficult Whereas in enclosed spaces like restaurants virus aerosol transmission has been shown to have occurred. I did read about one investigated virus transmission in a grocery, but that was most likely from the washroom. Unless you shopped in a small, crowded grocery I think that Pizza shop, where you presumably waited to collect your take out, is most likely, through the air.

Bealinehx

I tend to agree with you regarding the pizza establishment.
After my 45 day confinement I come away with a few positive points.
I have lost 5 Kgs.
With the Condo gym closed I have devised new workout regimes to which I can now add a daily 3 Km speedwalk (too hot and I'm too old to bother with jogging)
Buying beer, gin and tonic is cheaper using Lazada.

Raffin

Again around 2.5k new cases announced with the NCR this time over a thousand...but the NCR cases were only 79% recent. Calabarzon had 870 cases with 79% recent. So yesterday the two areas together contributed over 63% of the national total, but the late reporting was higher than normal. Cavite added 202 cases to the Calabarzon total.

Only 7 labs did not report. This previously problematic aspect of DOH covid data now seems to have been fixed.

For the second day in a row testing got up to around 36k. But that is still less than early September's level. So we could easily have many more cases with positivity nationwide at 8% and in the NCR 9%. For example testing at the 40k level achieved on some days last month could get us close to 3,000 cases again.


Deaths at 56 with 22 NCR. Although half of those go back from August.
Critically ill about 1,640 patients. This shows ICU occupancy in the three main covid affected regions. Rgion 4A is Calabarzon., the most populated region in the country:

Raffin

Every day a consistent number of new cases. The latest 7 day average 2,595. But seeing the trend is made difficult by labs not reporting...yesterday 10..and especially late reporting. Yesterday only 84% were recent. For the epicentre of NCR 83% of its 1,046 cases and for Calabarzon only 75% of its 567 cases. Yesterday the NCR backlog went back to March! The Calabarzon backlog to April. Then on top of that the level of testing two days ago was again low at 33.5k.

Anyway, Manila plus Calabarzon with 60% of total cases.

As a result the new cases curve is fairly misleading. It would be possible for the DOH and others to continuously recalculate the curves. If they do they seem not to publish them. Yesterday the DOH reported (in small print) that 2,089 cases out of the 2,674 did not give the date of illness onset. In that case they subtract 3 days from the specimen collection date. Sometimes even the collection date is missing and then they subtract 9 days.

Deaths at 62 nationally, with "only" 20 NCR and 4 from Calabarzon. Of the national total 13 were not recent. Of the NCR deaths 8 were from July and August.
The DOH removed 19 recoveries, but did not say what happened to them.

Those in a critical condition still at 1,640 so plenty more deaths likely. Those "critical" consistently more than twice the number "severe". Strange.

As a result of the steady death toll recently of 60 deaths a day the Philippines Case Fatality Rate has risen to 1.78% from 1.6% mid August. Over stated somewhat due to the late reporting.

The DOH do give bar charts of deaths by week of death. Late reports in blue added to that week's bar, although small numbers do not show up with this scale. The trend line is calculated from the daily reports and you can see the difference:


What do all these quarantines mean now? This report says the DTI now allowing many businesses under GCQ in Manila to go to 100% Pretty meaningless. They have realised their previous limits were well above the number of customers businesses are getting in this depressed economy. Barbershops in Manila under GCQ started out at 30% and are now still limited ,at 75%? How can that be worked in practice? Better to just enforce social distancing in seating? Many are open air anyway.

https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/10...t-in-gcq-areas

Raffin

Yesterday over 3k new cases announced with 40% from the NCR which were only 84% recent. Calabarzon 687 with 84% of those recent. So the NCR plus Calabarzon contributed 58% of the national recent cases. But 15 labs did not report and the latest individual test number was only 32.5k.

In the US New York State, population about 20m, conducted 134k tests last Friday. Despite having a positivity rate of only 1.25%. Aimed to counter a small recent spike in cases. A first world health system and more health spending per head.. But the spending priorities here are just not on areas like health and education.

One semi detached member of the government has spoken out:

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/10/04/...-highest-cases

Deaths were at 100. NCR 36 and Calabarzon 28. But 17 of the total from these two areas go back from August! Linked to there being 19 recoveries reclassified as deaths nationally!
What can you say about this recurrent data issue except that strange things have been going on? Philippines case fatality rate is now at 1.79%, despite its young population.

With the recoveries and deaths netted out active cases are now at a lower 43,642 from 46,272 last Sunday. But 1,658 people were in a critical condition, 18 more than yesterday.

On a weekly comparison the headline average daily case number was slightly higher last week than the week before...2,582 compared to 2,547. The latest Reproduction number at 0.98 against 0.85. Some late reporting is affecting the picture negatively but the outbreak here continues to grow and would look even worse if the testing effort was increased. Is the policy to save money for a vaccine? Or are there just organisational problems? Whatever the reason if more testing does not happen soon then deaths and the state of the economy will make this country one of the two worst casualties of the pandemic in SE Asia, along with Indonesia. International investors will take note.

Of course other countries are hiding their cases. In this region Myanmar is greatly under-testing. Elsewhere in Asia Turkey has not been including its asymptomatic cases since July. But the Philippines has been trying for years to create a perception it might be an "Asia tiger" one day. Unless things change soon how it has handled the pandemic will put a stop to that.

jaygee68

Thanks for providing these regular accurate updates on what is actually going on over there.They are a great help.

Raffin

In relation to recent numbers a low number of new cases announced...........2,291. Recent 87%. But 17 labs not reporting and the latest testing number went down to 24.5k. So with 8 to 10% positivity around another 800 to 1,000 cases could well have been found. Another puzzling aspect of this fall in testing is that the DOH claim they have made great improvements in contact tracing. So there should be more demand for tests from that.

NCR 825, 84% recent, which is 36% of the national total. Calabarzon (4A) 567 with 86% recent.
The two regions together making up just under 60% of total national recent cases.

As late reported cases are still being announced and therefore the use of total cases is continuing to be misleading for seeing the trend from the start of October I am recording the recent case numbers for the NCR and Calabarzon. Tried to go back some weeks to do that but found several DOH reports were missing from their report site, so will just do it going forward.

Deaths 64 with 37 NCR. In the NCR the late reporting of 20 of those went back from August!
Western Visayas had 6 deaths.

The Philippines case fatality rate now risen to 1.8% and is down at 102nd position out of 178 countries on one comparison table. World average at 2.94. But the Philippines has a young population compared to Thailand and South Korea, which have case fatality rates 1.64 and 1.75%. respectively. We are only doing well in comparison with Indonesia at 3.66% although we also have an age advantage of about 4 years on average with them.

On the critical list yesterday 1,648....10 less than the day before.

For those of us living in the NCR there has been a definite fall off in cases over the last few weeks. At one time in August NCR positivity rates were above 15% but the latest daily rate was 8.9%. Even though the testing effort has fallen off lately there is an improvement. But what about the areas away from large conurbations?

A farming area in Pangasinan is having his experience with covid:

Santa Barbara, Pangasinan

This first class municipality that lies on a plain terrain in the northern part of Agno Valley at the center of Pangasinan.

With a population of around 80,000 people occupying a land area of more than 61 sq. km (one-tenth the size of Mega Manila), it recorded its first coronavirus case on June 14 (swabbed on June 8). It reported 3 cases in July, 19 in August, 19 in September and just the first four days of October recorded 79 cases – 60 of which was reported yesterday.

This municipality has 29 barangays. It derives its main economy from agriculture, with rice and mango the only crops raised in all its barangays. More than half of the families in this municipality are farmers and the average family income is around 10,000 pesos ($200) annually.

The poverty index of the town is high as the annual income is less than the average regional threshold.

The municipality now has a total of 120 coronavirus cases.

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news...9-cases/story/

This is all you get from the Health Minister.

You can get more idea from the DOH under secretary about how things are going:

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/10/05/...cases-rise-doh

But where is the leadership from the top of the DOH?

His position is in the hands of the President and latest opinion surveys show the public approval rating of the President at 91%. Historically Filipinos have trusted their leaders, but he has even increased his previous rating. So the public must be getting the pandemic response they like? Or maybe too concerned with just putting food on the table? Or they don't appreciate the situation, especially with the reduction in critical media?

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news...se-asia/story/

Gazza-d

Do we know if the testing is done for free or are they charged. At 4500p to 9000p testing woukd be way out of reach of most people. If charged tbe only people seeking tests would be the ones needing it for travel or employment.

Bealinehx

When I first experienced flu like symptoms, my wife and I arranged for a private swab which resulted in a positive COVIV-19 results. Cost 4500 each.
City of Marikina took over through the very good Brgy Sto Nino and all subsequent swabs (one for Asawa and four for me) incurred no cost. I sort of expect a bill sometime in the future!