15,000+ are cases reported today. Are they now including the results from the antigen tests?

DOH had a system glitch March 31 and over 3k cases weren't announced. But a significant rise with well over 24k cases last two days.

The British Embassy has today announced that next week returning British Citizens and those who have "Indefinite Stay" status from the Philippines will have to endure the 14 day hotel quarantine. Why not for those returning from France?

Travelling from France you still need a negative test and home quarantine.

Philippines added to UK red list from April 9th.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/c...nts-of-concern

Yesterday the DOH announced a further 15,319 cases. Seven labs did not report and there was an exceptional tally of 3,709 positive results included after some system problems back on March 31, So you can say that the additional cases were only 11,601, but still another record. Backlogs have been a regular feature of the data lately as testing struggles to keep up with the increase in cases and even after taking out the March 31 cases there was still a more recent backlog of results included amounting to 4,326.

In general we can say that the pandemic case data has got more out of date lately. We can only hope that the DOH, their advisers and the government appreciate that.
Latest positivity again higher at 20.7%.

Deaths 17 with 5 RDs.

Active at 153,809, a record.
Comparing active case data internationally is difficult to do as countries use different criteria for recovery. Still, the Philippine's percentage of total cases is at a high level at around 18%, on a par with the US figure. The UK, Indonesia both around 8%.

NCR ICU beds use 78%. NCR Isolation beds use 71%.
Bad, but reports say that the binding constraint is lack of staff:

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/04/03/...tract-covid-19

As so many cases are backlogs there is no point in giving location data until they fall to much lower levels.
Also far too early to properly assess the effect of increased quarantine levels in the NCR+ bubble.

Some findings of a recent OCTA update:



The top 20 cities nationally for average daily new cases, according to OCTA. Hopefully they have taken into account late reporting.
Blue improving, yellow alarming and red dangerous.


Some very high positivity rates in the NCR and surrounding provinces. Cebu's figure much lower but still twice as high as the WHO standard for control. Benguet is the highest in the CAR, the average for the region is 15%.

Positivity also high in other areas eg the Cagayan Valley, 29%, and even in Bicol, 12%.

Today 12,576 new cases announced, 7 labs did not submit. on time. Positivity at again a worryingly higher figure , 24.2%. Again a large backlog included of 4,396. Tests in preparation 38.7k.
Backlog results have averaged nearly 3k a day over the last two weeks. They make it difficult to judge local trends as the backlogs might not be a representative sample of locations for recent days.

Deaths 103 with 48 of them wrongly tagged as past recoveries, still!!

Active cases up to 165,715 and the DOH say there are 829 in both Severe and Critical condition in primary hospitals.

We have reached 80% use in ICUs in the NCR. Primary hospitals effectively full up.

Some location detail:

NCR at 6,681 and with 53% of national cases. Region 4A 2,103 and 16.7%.Central Luzon with 1,231 and 9.8%.
The Bubble area gave 73% of cases. CAR, Cagayan and Central Visayas complete the top 6 areas which had 90% of national cases.

In the Central Visayas region the three main Cebu Cities had 147 cases and made up 46% of the region's cases.

As usual QC led in the NCR with 1,362, Manila 2nd with 903 cases. A long way behind was Caloocan at 559 cases. In the 400s Pasig, Taguig and Makati Cities.
Paranaque, Mandaluyong and Valenzuala were in the 300s. Significant that tiny Pateros had 108 cases. San Juan, the other small city had 76 cases.

For the provinces Cavite led again with 792 followed by Bulacan at 717 and Rizal with 534. Laguna 412 cases.
Sign of the times: Quezon Province, with usually low numbers recently, reported 116 cases.

Baguio City reported a higher 119 cases..
Davao City with a low 43 cases.

NCR bubble "lockdown" extended for "at least" another week past April 4. Even then a reversion to MECQ only. But I would think it's a relaxation of the 6pm curfew that will be most appreciated and that is a separate matter. If you're really going to assess the effect of these stricter quarantines in the NCR bubble one more week will not be enough because the return to more normality after Easter has not yet started, given the virus incubation period averaging about a week plus delays in testing.. Businesses will be on to the government not to extend further. A lot will depend on the daily case numbers. If they are regularly as high as 12 to 15k or even more for many days the government will have no choice but to keep the NCR bubble in the strictest quarantine. Falls back down to the previously unthinkable 8 to 10k level will give them a chance to relax controls somewhat..

Things are bad here when the chief of testing himself catches the virus!

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/04/03/...-week-at-least

Complete DOH tables:


MIM 43, OFW 27 Other Mindanao 125









For the top 20 urban areas NCR cities occupy 15 of the first 16 places.
Then Antipolo, Rizal 172, Apart from Baguio City at 119, Bacoor, Imus and Dasmarinas in Cavite complete the table and have 48% of the province's cases between them. These 3 cities are home to many NCR daily commuters.

Easter Sunday saw 11,028 new cases announced. From just over 6k latest tests, but also with nearly 5k not so recent tests included. Positivity was up again to 22.7%. Tests in preparation 37k.

Two deaths announced, both of them RDs.

Another recovery day with over 41k announced.

So now the country has 135.5k active cases and the DOH say 813 are both in the Severe and Critical categories, down 16 on the day before.
I really think these are "guesstimates"!

Compared to last Sunday there are nearly 30k more active cases, a 28.4% increase!
The great majority of cases will be mild and recover, though some of those will suffer "long covid " symptoms.
A small percentage here in the Philippines have gone on to have a serious illness, but now that small percentage translates into large numbers.

NCR ICU usage now at 78%, Isolation 70%. Full up.

Location detail:



Note: Nearly 100 Unknowns







Regions: NCR down 1k cases at 51.2% of national cases. Region 4A down a little with 18.5% of cases. Central Luzon down over 100 at 10%.
So NCR and 4A together at nearly 70% of national cases. The NCR+ bubble area just a little higher at 70.5%.
Cagayan Valley and CAR were both up a little.
Central Visayas was down by over 100 cases.
The Illocos region had around 300 cases both yesterday and the day before:


Illocos region recently showing a steeply increasing trend.

For NCR cities 14 were in the top 20 urban areas. Occupying the top 9 places.
One fifth of cases were from QC, though the number fell by over 200. Manila's case total also fell substantially, as did Pasig, Makati and Mandaluyong's.
Caloocan, Taguig and Paranaque all had modest rises on the day.
But Malabon had 150 or so more case than yesterday's total of 198..
San Juan had a significant nearly 50 more on the day.

Provincially: In the NCR bubble Cavite and Laguna were both down by about 60 but Bulacan showed the largest fall on the day of about 200 cases.
Rizal was about the same as the day before.
Outside the bubble Batangas was 170 cases up:


Batangas rising trend.

Pampanga added 120 cases more yesterday:


Pampanga rising trend.

La Union was a new recent entrant into the top 10 provinces:


La Union's very sharp recent increase from a low level.

Other cities:
Baguio City with a much higher 232 cases yesterday.
The 3 Cavite commuter cities of Bacoor, Imus and Dasmarinas had over 450 cases between them.
Cebu City was down with 66 cases.
Davao City maintained its recent low daily numbers with only 12 cases.

Finally, the latest national DOH chart showing the official progress of the recent surge:

New cases announced April 5 were 8,355. Lower but the DOH have admitted that many labs were closed over Easter......20 labs on April 1, 32 labs April 2 and 23 April 3. Out of 239.
The latest testing found 4,523 cases and to those a sizeable backlog of 3,832 was added. These Easter backlogs will affect the data for a few more days.
Tests under preparation at only 31k individuals.

Deaths 10 with 4 of them RDs.
Severe up 49 to 862, Critical down 94 to 719.

NCR ICU at 79%, isolation at 72%. For all the provinces around the NCR except Batangas the ICU percentage is above 70%. Cebu is below 70%.

OCTA research say the NCR R number lower at 1.61 (previously estimated at 1.88). Sounds good but the government hinting that after a further week of ECQ for the NCR bubble area then it will go to a form of Modified ECQ (MECQ).They have no funds to help people more after the P23bn in value to be doled out soon. More movement, testing restored and even ramped up should allow the situation to be properly assessed a week or so after that ie in 3 weeks time. It can't be now.

No DOH location detail available yet.

The latest OCTA report on the top 20 LGUs:




Makati and especially Pasay the only bright spots for case growth and daily attack rates in some LGUs are over 50 per 100k pop.

For comparison my home county in the UK near London has a daily attack rate of 46 per 100l pop. Though it's on a declining trend. As it is overall. My home town is one of its two black spots at 83. In a nearby county one bad urban area is at 116 but away from there in rural areas the attack rate is only 6. But there are more areas in Yorkshire and NE England between 50 and 100.

Hospital data somewhat meaningless as there are severe staff shortages.

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

Seems that the hospitals now have too many less ill covid cases admitted in February and March, when they had plenty of capacity. Now many serious cases can't get in.

Dr Who?

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/04/05/...avirus-variant

The WHO do a lot of good work but for me they are far too chummy with member governments. The one here looking for some outside support after being caught napping with the recent surge. Given the late availability of vaccines and the bad state of the economy there's not much they can do to make the situation much better. Just improve it a little as the country is really going in the wrong direction now, finding company with other bad performers. The Philippines in 10th position for new cases both yesterday and the day before.


Per capita cases growth selected Asian countries.

Some location detail on yesterday's cases:
Note: These results coming from a period when some labs were closed. They may therefore give a distorted picture of location.

Yesterday the positivity was down a little at 21.0%.

Regions:
NCR down at 3,818 or 46% of national cases. Region 4A and Central Luzon were also down. Cagayan Valley and CAR were next with 639 and 651 cases. The sixth region was Ilocos with 416 cases. These 3 regions were all up on the day.
The NCR+ bubble had 63% of total cases, lower than yesterday. The top 6 regions had 92% of total cases.

For the NCR nearly all cities had less cases. The exceptions were QC with 49 more and Valenzuala with 27 more. Of note are the recent falls in Pasay, which has gone down daily from 265 to 186 to 96 yesterday. We will see soon whether or not this is just due to lower Easter testing and labs closed.

For the provinces those around the NCR all had lower numbers. Maybe also due to lab closures? Significantly La Union, Pangasinan, Isabela, Quezon...... all provinces further away, had more cases on the day. Cases in Isabela were at the same level.

Baguio City had 89 cases.
But good signs from Cebu where its 3 main cities only recorded 66 cases between them.
Davao City had only 11 cases.

https://www.cnnphilippines.com/news/...naredondo.html

A few hours ago this was also on the BBC World news site, but has now gone.

A view of covid treatment outside a private Cavite hospital.

Raffin,
Just showed the picture to my asawa who is a midwife. Her reaction was 'Why not! No beds available so what to do?"

Agree, another example of people here finding ways in difficult circumstances... Lucky its the dry season.

Two updates on restrictions:

Whereas it was Ok on Easter Sunday access to Tagaytay from Manila through Cavite restricted to essential travel .from yesterday.

Couldn't enter the large and sparsely populated Tagaytay Meralco business office yesterday to pay bill as 65 and over, and presumably to do anything else. Wife had to.do it. Maybe this is just part of the draconian approach here of the doctor mayor to seniors, with bans on entry to some Malls, rerstos and attractions. Given the Meralco office's situation this unnecessary change won't be too much of an issue for most Seniors here , but would be if it is imposed generally in Manila and other densely populated areas.

Deaths 10 with 4 of them RDs.
Severe up 49 to 862, Critical down 94 to 719.
In the UK we were losing something like 30% of criticals so when will the Philippines come clean with the real death toll.