Raffin

I think the people in Pasay getting infected at the rate of well over 100 a day lately are mostly not the type who go around town at night in vehicles. They're catching the virus through everyday contact at work or locally. The Barangay night time curfews on the young which we saw in Paranaque cut crime etc but unfortunately push them to congregate indoors. No school attendance so they probably also hang around in the day together with friends as many are not supervised doing those printed modules.
Yes, churches allowed only up to 30% of seating capacity under GCQ. Difficult to monitor, unlike small restos etc.

Raffin

Correction: last month GCQ church maximum capacity raised to 50% :

https://mb.com.ph/2021/02/12/iatf-al...o-50-capacity/

Raffin

Yesterday another total over 3k and some more from the NCR, Seven labs not reporting. Positivity from 30k tests was at 9.2%. The backlog of positives over 400. Tests coming along at 35k.
Deaths at 51 with 13 RDs.

Mass Sunday recoveries at 10.5k
Active cases are at 36,043 , up over 6k or 21% on last Sunday.
Severe cases in hospital down 23, Critical up 13 at 757/793.

Just the main locational detail available:

By region: NCR 1540, C Visayas 495, Calabarzon 347, C Luzon 219, Davao R 116, CAR 113
In the NCR: QC 261, Pasay 220, Manila 216, Makati 124,, Paranaque 109. Then 8 more cities with 50-100 cases.
Other cities: Baguio 45, Cebu City 205, Mandaue 37, LapuLapu 57, Davao City 52
Provinces: Cavite 142, Bulacan 150

NCR at 47% of national total, 4A at 10.6%. So the two together made up nearly 58% of the national number.
Pasay continues its large and significant figures. Paranaque has about doubled its recent figures. It borders Pasay in many places.
Malabon reported a low figure at 22.
Central Visayas at 15%. with Cebu City back to over 200 after some reductions recently.

Not much good news recently from the NCR.
According to the OCTA research group only Valenzuala is showing a downward trend.
Otherwise upward case trends in the rest of the cities....especially in QC, Makati, Taguig, Paranaque, Caloocan and Mandaluyong.
Pasay, Makati, Malabon and Navotas have the daily average highest virus per head...in Pasay's case at 30 per 100,00. But still, many areas in the UK exceed that even now with its falling cases. Hospitals are nearing capacity in Makati and several other cities have bed and ICU occupancy at high levels.
The R number is at 1.66 (national 1,47) and average positivity recently has been 8% so no improvement to be expected soon.

The provinces of Cavite and Bulacan, both bordering MM, down somewhat on yesterday's figures.

OCTA also say the Cebu Cities and Davao areon a downward trend, but Baguio City is on an upward trend.

The past week vs the week before:

Average daily cases 2414 (2138) Up 276 or by 13%
Average daily deaths 25 (80)

Last bit of cheery news:

The DOH now reports 118 confirmed cases of the more contagious UK variant and 52 more cases of SA variant which is also thought to reduce vaccine effectiveness. Oft those 52 cases 41 are with addresses in the NCR and the locations of 11 are presently unverified. Six other SA cases were found a week ago. making the total 58.

Raffin

The second highest new case total yesterday for this year so far at 3,356. Six labs did not report. Nearly 1,600 results were from a backlog indicating testing is struggling to keep up with demand. Tests in preparation at 36k. Positivity at 8.8%.
Five deaths reported.
Severe up 30, critical up 6 both reported at 787.

Locational detail for March 7 cases:


Plus MIM 14, other Mindanao 19










NCR dominating more with nearly half of national cases. QC leading with nearly300 cases, Manila with over 200 and Pasay maintaining high numbers for its population. Paranaque with over 100 cases, something only seen there mid 2020. Fourteen NCR cities in the top 20 and even small Pateros reporting a jump in cases. It's a large strongly connected area and those connections include the surrounding provinces of Calabarzon and Bulacan. So region 4A had 13.5% of national cases and therefore the greater area of NCR plus 4A had just over three quarters of them. Within region 4A Cavite and Rizal provinces, both with large areas having close links with the NCR , are showing the most concerning case growth:


Cavite


Rizal

Cebu continues with high case numbers at 12% of national figures and its 3 main cities contributed nearly 70% of those. But their case numbers have fallen somewhat recently.
Central Luzon with 6.6% and CAR with 3.1% mean that the top 5 regions are together adding nearly 85% of national cases.
The province of Bulacan, again with close links to Manila, is giving over half of Central Luzon's cases:


Bulacan

Baguio City with 44 cases, too low to get into the top 20 table yesterday, but still of concern:


Baguio City

Good news to end on In with Davao City showing a steeply falling recent trend. Only 10 cases yesterday:



.....and nearby Davao del Sur province reported no cases yesterday, It has also seen a good downward trend up to just recently when cases rose a little.

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news...ses-doh/story/

Read the Health Under Secretary's comments and see she gives no evidence, even single instances, to support her contention that there has been a fall lately in public compliance with health protocols.

Bealinehx

Well I for one have seen many, many instances of non compliance of basic protocols. Face mask wearing, children out and about. I wonder what proportion of the population correctly was their hands for the minimum of 20 seconds each time they return to their place of abode?
There is no doubt that after 12 months of restrictions people are getting restless and hungry.

Raffin

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news...story/?just_in

Some support here. Yes, I think people will naturally get tired of masks and shields as time goes on. Malls will be ok but in crowded markets and streets with it getting warmer too. I think they never did do the hand washing. There's unavoidable and avoidable social distancing. Maybe people are getting laxer on the latter. Looks like you should dig out your Q pass for shopping in markets and supermarkets again. Though I thought they were pointless in the more spacious groceries and Malls, and especially the 1 person rule.
If people's behaviour changes gradually why the steep recent NCR increase? Think variants playing a bigger role .than the DOH are prepared to admit to.

Bealinehx

What is a Q pass?
Incidentally I have just had an altercation with an arrogant American in the local Robinson's supermarket. I challenged him for not covering his nostrils with his facemark and not wearing a face shield. The conversation ended with me saying that it is no surprise that there have been more Americans dead due to COVID that the combined deaths in WW1&2, Korea and Vietnam.
Don't know why the managers didn't challenge him. He was 6'4" and stocky so I suppose they were intimidated by his size.

Raffin

Quarantine Pass. Didn't you get one in Marikina?
I would caution you about stocky Americans in supermarkets. One came close to hitting me over a misunderstanding at a Senior checkout. He was obviously ex military and the worse for it. Met a few over the years.

Bealinehx

No never had to use it. I am a quarantine abiding old gentleman whose only outing are to one of two supermarkets both within 5 minutes walk and small Blue Wave mall across the road. I am usually in the gym within the confines of the condo complex most morning at 6am for an hours workout. All beer and wines purchased online as is good quality English tea! I get my Vitamin D dose when on the terrace for an hour a day.
As my wife is a midwife it seems that she will receive her OAZ vaccinations in the very near future.

Raffin

The latest DOH announcement is another 2,668 cases, with again well over 1k from the NCR. Only 1,594 tests counted out of 20k, giving a positivity of 8.1% and therefore over 1k positives will be added tomorrow or soon after. Why the DOH cannot include them they don't say. Tests on the way only at 26k.

Deaths 7, 2 of them RDs.

Severe cases down 4 and critical up 2. At 753 and 795.

Just the leading data for yesterday:

Regions: NCR 1,244, 4A 434, Central Visayas 423, Central Luzon 188,....... a long way behind was Cagayan Valley 73
So NCR at 46.6% and 4A at 16.3%.... the two original epicenters making nearly 63% of the national total.

In the NCR: QC 256, Pasay 224, Manila 170, Makati 91, Paranaque 69, Pasig 49, Las Pinas 43, Navotas 40
R in the NCR now estimated to be higher at 1.8.
Pasay continues with high numbers,
Only Pateros in single figures. The usually high number cities get higher and a number of cities that used to report single or very low two digit numbers are now consistently with higher two digit reports.
Malabon with only 28 continues its improvement.

In Calabarzon the focus is on Cavite with 158 or 36% of the region's cases. Rizal was with 132 and Laguna 88.
For Central Luzon more than half of its cases were in Bulacan province.

Central Visayas with 16% of the national cases, Cebu City with 166, added to Mandaue and LapLapu cities the total comes to 296, that is 70% of the region's cases. The majority of the rest were from other Cebu locations.

Low figures from Baguio and Davao cities, 5 and 7 resp.

Vaccines:

https://www.rappler.com/nation/duter...ccine-purchase

The President and his spokesman undermining the HTAC and putting the Health Secretary in a difficult position.

Reliability of data:

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news...ta-data/story/

A big disparity there for the numbers of two barangays in the news lately in Pasay City between what local officials say and what the DOH say. OCTA get their figures from the DOH, Maybe they should first check locally? This sort of thing is not new. Twenty thousand or so supposed QC cases were under dispute last year with the DOH. No later information as to how that was settled.

Last a recent news item which didn't get much publicity

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news...fectant/story/

Trump did not repeat his similar claim!

Raffin

Yesterday the cumulative total breached 600k with 2,886 cases announced, 5 labs did not report in time. Over 200 of the cases were from a backlog. The positive cases cases were 10.3% of those individuals tested, a high since Sep 9 when it was 11%. Tests coming along at 35.7k.

Deaths 17 with 4 of them RDs
Active cases have now breached.44k, Severe cases up 3 to 756, Critical cases down 39. For the minority in hospital!

Leading locations:

Regions: NCR 1,546 4A 352 , Central Visayas 334, Central Luzon 163, CAR 141, Cagayan Valley 76, W Visayas 71
NCR cities: QC 308, Manila 247, Pasay 215, Makati 142, Caloocan 117, Paranaque 95, Taguig 77, Valenzuala 71, Marikina 61, Pasig 59
Provinces: Cavite 103, Rizal 124, Laguna 68, Bulacan 100
Other Cities: Baguio 59, Cebu 138, Davao 22

NCR with 53.6% of national cases , Region 4A with 12.2%....so together contributing nearly two thirds of the country's cases. Cases up in the leading cities. Pasay continues to report high numbers for its much smaller population than in the other leading cities for cases..

Cases in Calabarzon down on the previous day.

In the Central Visayas the three leading cities of Cebu gave 58% of total regional cases, showing that more cases there have spread to its smaller towns..

Latest DOH NCR chart:


Trend increase as steep as it was back in early July.
To be kind to the government here the WHO are calling it a "spike", not a wave, because cases before Xmas did not fall far enough.
You can also see that the so-called "plateauing" before Xmas was actually a gentle increase.

Comparison with Indonesia:




Indonesia now on a well established downward trend, whereas the Philippines is starting an upward one.
Noticeable that while Indonesia has had a bad outbreak its case trend has been much smoother than that of the Philippine's. Probably reflecting the way testing and control measures here have been implemented here.

Raffin

Highest daily total since Sep 19 announced yesterday at 3.749. Higher than the 3,439 for March 4. Four labs not reporting in time. Only 130 plus results were backlog and the positivity from 32.9k tests was at an increased 11.0%. Tests coming along at 37.4k. The last time positivity was this high was back in late August. It peaked at 14.4% at the end of July. Testing volume needs to increase somewhat in the light of the increasing positivity.


Active cases up to 47,769 nationally with 21,268 or 44.5% of them in the NCR.
Severe up 8 and Critical down 39 to 764 and 717.

Fuller locational detail is available:


Plus MIM 14, other Mindanao 31







Becoming a repeat of the NCR table. Needs to be expanded.

Regionally NCR at 52.7% and 4A at 11.8%, making their total contribution 64.5% of national cases.
Adding Central Visayas and Central Luzon brings the top 4 regions to 82.6% of national cases.

Close to 2k cases for the NCR!
City of Manila leading QC even with its much smaller population. The two biggest cities in NCR population accounted for 30% of cases.
Pasay and Malabon continue high numbers for their smaller than average populations.

For provinces Cebu up on the previous day. So is Cavite and Bulacan. Rizal down a little.

Cebu City giving 56% of Cebu cases, Up 74 on the day before.
Both Baguio and Davao Cities again have low numbers. Two and 16 only.

Control measures and monitoring:

For MM a 10pm to 5am curfew from March 15 to the end of the month.
More efforts to maintain public social distancing by police.
Exhortations not to mix households.

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news...f-entry/story/

The IATF seeing resistance to its relaxation of domestic travel covid control measures.

Variants:

Still no admittance of community transmission by the DOH.
So far logged 118 UK , 58 SA variant cases in total.
QC alone recently reported 13 UK and 4 SA variants.

The President in a quandry!:

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news...ossible/story/

One advantage of Populist politicians is that they will more often tell you what they are thinking. People are gong hungry and this is as the government is holding back on more aid, pleading lack of funds. A third Bayanihan bill is still waiting to go through Congress. But plenty of money can be found for the military and intelligence funding. The President himself controls a very large intelligence fund.

It seems incredible that he is saying this as cases have started to increase again. Opening up would be risky even if they weren't! Is he believing those that tell him this is a short lived "spike" and not really a wave?

Interesting too that he mentions population. The Philippines has had one of the highest population growth rates in Asia for some time and it is an obvious issue and one which has no doubt exacerbated the pandemic here. Back in 2016 it was growing at 1.7% pa but it has been estimated to now be growing less fast at 1.3%. The effect of the 2020 lockdown did show up in some increased births but as the pandemic has not ended an overall assessment awaits.

Looks like the present Quarantines will be maintained for show and control measures will not (and cannot) be greatly increased. More relaxations will await vaccination, but as they will be slow in coming there is a danger of re-opening too quickly as has happened in other countries and in some US states recently. The medical experts will tell the President about the limited and gradual effect on reducing transmission from vaccination and to wait to relax until a reasonably high percentage of the virus spreading population are fully vaccinated. But one option the government can consider here to have a quicker effect on new cases is to copy the UKs "delayed second shot" vaccine strategy.

Doctors working for the government spin the evidence:

Another example here of that. UK evidence on the UK variant found it was from 40% up to 70% more transmissable. Not 40%.

https://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/natio...m?ocid=BingHPC

Putting the likely figure at the lower end of the confidence interval at 40%, rather than at the 55% central estimate adds support to the government line that the main reason for the large increase in cases is the public not conforming enough to health protocols

Raffin

Not at all surprising that yesterday the DOH announced a total over 4,500, the highest daily figure since Sept 14. Five labs did not report and it included a backlog of over 1,100 positives. Positivity from the latest testing at 10.7%. down slightly on the day before.

Deaths at 87 with 26 of them RDs.

Active cases at a little over 52k, the highest since October 17.

Hospital data: Severe down 16 at 780, Critical down 63 also at 780.

Regarding hospitals in the NCR, where cases have been increasing lately, QC, Makati and Taguig Cities are all at more than 70% bed use.
ICU beds are at high usage levels in Taguig, Pasig, Mandaluyong, Las Pinas, Muntinlupa and San Juan.

At the time of posting the DOH website is down..."Unexpected Error"! So no locational data at all. But we can safely assume NCR cases were well over 2k.
The latest NCR R estimate up to 1.86 from 1.8.

Will try to update later.

Really amazing that the DOH can get away with not announcing any regional data straight away when there are fast growing outbreaks in areas like the NCR and Central Visayas. They have the data and used to do so. There must be some effect of that, however small, on people's behavour as locational data is only presented in a more general way later in news bulletins rather than having the effect of them seeing one number and its increase.

Variants:

To make things more complicated a Philippine variant turning up in a Filipino traveler who flew from here to Japan. Two mutations of concern which have already been found in samples from the Central Visayas:

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news...ippines/story/



BBC data
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51235105

The Philippines one of two, and the largest Asian country here, showing a long established case upswing.

Raffin

Location now available for yesterday's cases:


Plus MIM 24, other Mindanao 53










NCR at 47% and together with 4A at 13.7% making over 60% of the national total..
All NCR cities had increased numbers. Thirteen NCR cities in the top 20 urban areas.
QC notable for being close to 500 new cases. Pasay continues to be high for its size and its count yesterday was nearly 130 higher.
Malabon much lower yesterday.

The provinces closely linked to MM all had substantially increased numbers with Bulacan and Rizal having increases of over 60% on the day before.

Central Visayas was the second highest region, with 11.2% of national cases.
The top 6 regions, which also included Central Luzon, CAR and Cagayan Valley, made up 89% of national cases.

Cebu City was still high, but down substantially on the day before.
Baguio City rebounded after a handful of cases yesterday to well over 100 cases.
Davao City was also higher than yesterday, but only up to 34 cases.

Finally, some evidence about the UK variant's covid outcomes. In a UK matched pair study ie comparing outcomes for those with the original variant and the UK variant involving 56k pairs of patients from last October to January it came out that the UK variant was much more deadly. Contrary to previous assessments, which only said it was more transmissable.


Dr John Campbell's You tube Friday update

Raffin

Inevitably yesterday the national total (just) reached the highest daily total since August 26, up to 5,000, as the NCR and close by regions increased their cases. Seven labs not reporting. Positivity at a higher 12.8%. Out of the 5k cases over 1k were from backlog. Tests in process at 37k.

Deaths 72 and 23 of them were RDs.


Deaths on a steep downward trend...for now...

Severe and Critical hospital patients both up 14 to 794.
Active cases up to 56.7k.

The main locational detail:

Regions with percentage of national total in brackets.

NCR 2,368 (47.4), 4A 784 (15.7) Central Visayas 479 (9.6), Central Luzon 403 (8.1), CAR 225 (4.5), Cagayan Valley 189 (3.8).
The top 6 regions accounting for 89% of national cases.

The NCR increasing by nearly 10%. Region 4A with a 2% increase on the day before.

For NCR cities: QC 433, Manila 343, Pasay 224, Makati 181, Pasig 158, Paranaque 140, Caloocan 121, Navotas 114, Malabon 111 and Valenzuala 104 were those with 3 digits.
These cities made up over 80% of NCR cases. They are, except for Manila, cities where there are serious concerns about recent case growth an/or positivity. Very high attack rate still in Pasay at 39 per 100k. Navotas also high at 19 per 100k. For comparison many areas outside London are still at 25 to 50 per 100k.
In Taguig, QC and Makati hospitals are under great stress.

In region 4A case numbers in all provinces were up. The provinces furthest from the NCR, Batangas and Quezon also now showing rises:


Batangas


Quezon province

In Central Luzon Bulacan was down a little on the day before. But the second most populous province Pampanga has recently also shown a sharp increase:


Pampanga

In the Central Visayas, which is mainly Cebu for covid cases, Cebu City at 169, was up a little. Together with LapuLapu and Mandaue Cities making just over 300 or 70% of Cebu Island's cases.

In the CAR Baguio City at 89, was down on the day before.
In the South Davao City up to 50 yesterday.

Latest news on variants:

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/03/13/...brazil-variant

A detailed report from ABS-CBN. We have 98 cases of a new variant, named P3 discovered from samples taken from the Central Visayas.. It contains "mutations of concern"
Also our first Brazil variant case.

Experts from the OCTA group have for many weeks said that there is a strong possibility that variants are a major factor in the Central Visayas outbreak, in Pasay City and lately other NCR cities. The DOH have consistently downplayed their contribution.