Raffin

Again nearly 10k new cases announced...9,475 with 7 labs not reporting. Positivity up to 19.8%. Test results cannot keep up. Nearly 4,300 results from a backlog. The DOH made the backlog figure harder to calculate recently. You wonder whether that was on purpose.
The latest tests were down at 26.2k and 38k are said to be in progress.

Deaths 11 and of those 4 were RDs. A never ending endemic problem of the wrong tagging of deaths.

Another recovery day with 22k.
Active cases 105,586 . A 44.5% increase in a week!

Now 845 Severe and 739 Critical. Up 18 and down 88.

Some location detail:

NCR down 84 cases at 5,120,
4A up a little at 1,598. Central Luzon was also up a little to 981.
The main mover was Cagayan Valley with 65 or 19% more cases.
NCR at 54%, 4A at 16.9% of national cases. Add Bulacan and you get the "bubble" at 75% of cases.
The six highest case regions, including Central Luzon, Cagayan Valley, Central Visayas and CAR accounted for 92.5% of national cases.

In the NCR half of the cities increased and half decreased. Mainly by a few cases, although QC had 15% more cases to report and reached over 1k at 1,093.
The big exception was Marikina which only reported 94 cases compared to 503 the day before.

In the provinces big increases were reported in Bulacan and Cavite, 117 and 121 more. Batangas had a small increase.
Laguna had 59 less. Rizal 52 less.

In the Central Visayas the three largest Cebu cities gave 53% of the region's cases, with Cebu City reported 119.

Baguio City had 42. Davao City 30 new cases.
Santiago City, Isabela had 82 new cases.

The one week ECQ for the NCR+ bubble starts today and it's surely going to be extended.



The next country in our sights is the USA!!

Compared with our neighbour Indonesia it's only having nearly half of our new daily cases now. Yes, more deaths per head, but crucially it has vaccinated 3.9% of its population compared to only 0.5% here.

The Philippines president has said the country has not yet purchased any foreign vaccines.

Bealinehx

USA Showing 38305 as I write.

Raffin

Oh yes, thanks B ,I forgot the Worldmeters is real time updated. USA going to be about 60k. Not yet found a table which gives new cases for the last 24 hours.

mikemike

buses out of PTEX to the provinces were jammed full for the allowable limits last ones left circa 21:00 last night

Bealinehx

"buses out of PTEX to the provinces were jammed full for the allowable limits last ones left circa 21:00 last night" I hope your earlier prediction is wrong but I'm fearful you will be proved right. Maybe if COVID has been exported to the provinces the victims may not be able to return to MM. Only time will tell.
Take particular care everybody.
As aside note. Now that I am restricted to the Condo Building, and the gym is now closed I have a devised a variation on my fitness programme. I walk along all the levels of the building and it comes to approximately one mile. How about that for a piece of useless information!

Raffin

For some time many officials in the provinces have been uneasy about the IATF opening up domestic travel. They will be livid about what they are getting this Easter. Particularly as tourism, which can be more easily vetted and helps the local economy, is off from the bubble.

Btw B you can go out as a 65+ "for essential purposes". Unfortunately those 3 words are often left out.

Raffin

Best to look at the world table yesterday , Phils 10th for new cases:

Raffin

Complete DOH tables:


MIM 33, other Mindanao 81

Bealinehx

Raffin,
Thanks so really nothing has changed for this old fart then.

Raffin

New cases for Monday March 29 were just over 10k, 3 labs not reporting ,but half were from a backlog of previous results. Positivity 18%, down a little. Tests coming along 33.9k, as testing is always down at weekends. We will see what effect Easter has. Many more people are at home, but then the testers will want to be also.
Deaths 16, with 11 RDs.
Active cases at 115.5k.
Hospital: Severe down 36 at 809 and Critical up 70 also at 809.

Location detail:


E Visayas 19, OFW 18, other Mindanao 75








The NCR added 300 plus cases on the day before and was at 54.3% of national cases. The biggest increase was 600 more cases for Region 4A. Cagayan Valley also increased, by 88 cases. Central Visayas and Central Luzon both had less cases.

The NCR together with 4A and Central Luzon made 84.7% of national cases.
The NCR bubble area, leaving out Batangas, Quezon and only including Bulacan provinces from Central Luzon was at 77.5% of national cases.
The top 6 provinces, which included Western Visayas and left out the CAR, gave 94% of all new cases.

In the NCR Marikina, after a low record the day before, went right back up to 457 cases. Other notable increases were in Taguig, Mandaluyong,, Pasay, Valenzuala, Navotas and Malabon.
The biggest fall was in Pasig, down 160 cases. Significant falls also from Makati and Paranaque.

Provincially Laguna stood out, adding 279 onto the number of cases for the previous day. Cavite added 182 cases. Pampanga added 96 cases. Rizal 42.
Bulacan reported 115 less cases.

NCR cities captured the top 12 positions in the top 20 urban areas table, and had 14 in the top 20. The other places were filled by Cavite and Rizal cities, except for Tuguegarao City in Cagayan at 18th with 109 cases. That city featured some months ago regularly, now returning with more cases.

Cebu City had only 98 cases and together with the two other main Cebu cities added 174 cases, 58% of the Central Visayas total.

Baguio City 61 and Davao City 30 new cases.

Hospital data for NCR:

ICU 76% occupancy
Isolation 70%

The President has announced revised Quarantines for April:


ECQ for the NCR+ bubble under review after April 4 but is obviously going to be extended. The situation is not likely to improve, Easter reduces mobility and testing will be affected too. After April 4 a more normal situation will occur in which to assess progress, if any. Better to just announce that now,

To help people affected by the NCR bubble ECQ unspent money (i think it was 20-25%) from Bayanihan 2 will be used. Little cash but more "in kind" aid will be added. Meanwhile no progress with a Bayanihan 3 package, which will obviously be needed soon:

Raffin

Yesterday again over 9k cases at 9,296 (9th in the world yesterday) and 9 labs not reporting. Again a large backlog, 3k added to the results, which were from 30k tests. Positivity at 20.4%. Tests in process at 34k.
Testing in the NCR is obviously not able to keep up with the increased positivity. The testing Czar has said that some NCR labs are badly affected by covid infections in their staff.
The DOH is looking into adding in results from antigen tests in some way. At present only PCR test results are announced.

5 Deaths, 1 RD.
Severe up 64 to 873, Critical down 61 to 748.

Active cases nearly at 125k, a record 17% of a cumulative total of over 742k cases..

Location details:


OFW 22, other Mindanao 72










Numbers from the NCR, 4A and Central Luzon were all down. Cagayan Valley's , CAR and Ilocos, the sixth highest region's, all rose. Central Visayas announced only 211 cases and dropped out of the top 6.
The NCR alone had 53.2% of national cases ( 54.3% the day before).
The NCR+ bubble gave 71.3% of national cases ( 77.5% the day before).

In the NCR cases in QC, Manila, Mandaluyong. Makati, Navotas and Valenzuala all fell significantly. Marikina reported only 82 cases, but 457 the day before, following a pattern over the last few days of a big fluctuation from day to day. Taguig had 547 cases, over 100 more, as did Las Pinas. Tiny San Juan had nearly 100 more cases.

The top 6 regions had 90.3% compared to 94% of total national cases.

Provincially both Cavite and Laguna reported over 300 less cases. Pampanga's dropped by 74. Bulacan's rose slightly.

In the top 20 urban areas NCR cities occupied 15 places. Baguio City was 14th at 131 with 70 more than the day before. Santiago City again had a high number at 99.
Davao City had 58 and missed the top 20, but had a much higher number than recently.

Cebu City had 51 and together with Mandaue and LapuLapu Cities had only 105 cases, less than half the Central Visayas region's cases. On the mend.

Focus on Quirino Province, placed in MECQ until mid April. Population about 200k.


Quirino Province showing a steep increase. Yesterday 187 cases, 54 the previous day.

Vaccination news:

Despite what the President said private vaccine imports do need to involve a discussion with the government because of indemnity and cannot be imported "at will".

To get a vaccination you will need a Philhealth number. No problem Philhealth says, we cover 93m out of the 110m plus population. But most of those are dependents. Do many of them have one ready?

NCR bubble assistance:

Looks like it is up to the LGUs to decide on how the P1,000 aid is given...by cash or in kind or a mixture.

https://businessmirror.com.ph/2021/0...nreleased-dbm/

According to this recent article only about P3bn of Bayanihan 2 funds remain unspent.
Total bubble aid for this week is about P23bn (see yesterday's post). So where is the remaining P20bn or so coming from? Looks to me the government don't want people to know.

DOLE has announced money for workers (P5,000) and displaced migrant workers (P10,000) affected by the NCR bubble ECQ:

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/03/30/...ceive-cash-aid

In our backwater of Cavite, with hardly any covid, an owner jeep roving loudspeaker announcement encouraging people to stay at home in the day, over 65s must, then a late afternoon warning about the 6pm curfew. Deathly quiet after 6pm, even the local dogs seem quieter!
But you wonder generally whether having to stay at home may risk more chance of being infected, not less. Apart from annoying people. After all, where can you socialize these days in the evening? No rules about household mixing have been announced here. The government could have learned from Europe on that.

Raffin

Entering the Easter period now plus a more restrictive quarantine on the expanded epicentre so for a week or so figures are going to be even more unreliable than usual.
A solon, one of the better ones here, received an advance text from someone in the DOH a few days ago:

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

I don't think they are in to hiding data large scale but maybe they are looking to manage the publication time. The aim would be avoid reaching benchmarks over the weekend, when more people are watching the news. It may be a coincidence that the 8,000 total was breached on Monday 22 March, not over the previous weekend. Likewise there were high numbers leading up to and over the weekend of 27/28 March just below 10,000, but the 10,000 benchmark was then breached on Monday 29 March with 10,016 cases. Let's see when we get close to the next benchmark of 11,000.

Yesterday 6,128 new cases, with 6 labs not reporting. Much lower than lately. The DOH statement came with a few words hinting at a validation issue. Presumably the announcement is all done virtually and there was no further clarification. Anyway, what we have is positivity of 19.9% and about 1,800 cases held back, rather than the usual backlog. Maybe the issue is about that? Tests were at 37.8k and tests in process are at about the same level.


Sample figures are of course much higher than the more understandable individual numbers and the testing czar likes to quote them, claiming they are already averaging over 50k day, very misleading: and anyway the average has fallen back over the last few days.

https://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/other...ay/ar-BB1faacG

106 deaths with 47 RDs...the highest since Feb 20. (239)
Active 130,245 and Severe 782, down 91, Critical 782, up 34.

Nationally ICU use is at 74% and isolation beds are at 69%.
But in the NCR the figures are 76% and 69%. with 49 of its facilities, one third of them, at a critical level.

These 3 articles give a good summary of the sorry picture:

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

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

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news..._picks&order=2

Some detail on location:

Regional: All the top regions were down except Central Visayas, up 73 cases. The NCR at a lower than usual 48% of national cases. The NCR plus bubble area at 4272 cases or 70% of the national total.
The top 6 regions were at a lower 89.3% of the national total.
In the NCR all except 3 cities were down significantly. The exceptions were Malabon, Valenzuala and Navotas, all with small rises.
Provincially all in regions 4A and Central Luzon had lower figures, except Cavite with 101, or 19%, more cases.
Quirino Province was 107 cases down on the day before.

In the Central Visayas the 3 main Cebu cities had nearly 100 more cases at 203, out of the regional total of 284, a higher 71.5%.of the region's cases.

Baguio City and Davao City were both down, at 64 and 27 cases.
Santiago City was also down from 99 to 44 cases.

Vaccine news:

NCR Seniors must register by March 31!

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

Finally, you can now give other IDs and not just a Philhealth number to get a vaccination.

Bealinehx

"NCR Seniors must register by March 31! "
What a lot of nonsense. I'll check it out after the Easter break

Raffin

Complete DOH tables for yesterday's cases:


Bicol 18, OFW18, other Mindanao 41









Fourteen NCR cities were in the top 20, the rest from region 4A and Bulacan.

Raffin

Yesterday 8,920 and 7 labs not reporting. backlog of 1,700 or so included. Positivity up again to 21.1%. Tests coming along at a higher 46.7k.
Deaths 6
Active cases at their highest ever at nearly 139k.
Severe and Critical in primary hospitals both up 52 at 834 both.

Some location detail:

Regionally: NCR up 41% on the day to 5,019 cases, a rise of 41%. Big rises also for Central Luzon and region 4A by 38 and 34%. Cagayan Valley also up by more than 100 cases.
Central Visayas and CAR both down significantly.

For the NCR the majority of cities had many more cases. Manila with nearly 400 more, Pasig over 300 more, QC, Marikina, Caloocan with nearly 300 more. Makati and Pasay had nearly 200 more cases on the day.
Malabon, Mandaluyong and Navotas all had significantly fewer cases.

For the provinces rises seen in Rizal , Batangas, Pampanga and especially in Laguna, rising 230 on the day.

In the Central Visayas the 3 main Cebu cities reported only 69 cases between them out of the 172 regional cases.

Elsewhere Baguio City at 43, Davao City at only 14.
Santiago City, Isabela with only 24.
Quirino Province also low at 26.

Some more shocking hospital stories;

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news..._picks&order=4

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

On Seniors vaccination:

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news...uns-out/story/

Dr John Campbell did once say there was no reason Sinovac would not be effective, given it is a traditional type vaccine.

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news...ne-list/story/

In general the covid surge here will continue to affect the Phils top export.

The DOH tables:


Unknown 31, other Mindanao 116