New confirmed cases rise to 2,240 bringing total to 559,288
(Eagle News) — The number of COVID-19 deaths in the country reached 12,069 after 239 fatalities were reported on Saturday, Feb. 20, the highest number of deaths reported in a day so far this year.
New confirmed cases also increased to 2,240, the highest daily toll this February, and the second highest this year. This brought the total number of confirmed cases as of Saturday to 559,288.
-Rise in percentage of active cases, deaths-
The percentage of active cases also reached 6.1 percent (34,100 cases) while the percentage of those who died increased to 2.16 percent. Both percentages were the highest so far this year.
The number of reported recoveries on Saturday were 504, bringing to 513,120 the total recoveries. This represented 91.7 percent of total cases.
On Friday, Feb. 18, the number of fatalities reported were 157; and the previous day, Thursday, Feb. 17, the deaths were 96.
-Rise in cases, deaths amid presence of infectious variants-
The increasing number of deaths and confirmed daily cases came about amid the reported entry of new COVID-19 variants, and the presence of two mutations in Central Visayas.
Philippine genome scientists are also racing to do biosurveillance of the entire country, as well as the genome sequencing of COVID-19 samples to determine the number of cases positive for the UK variant, and to know if the other variants – the South African and Brazilian variants – have already entered the country.
They are also investigating if there are other COVID-19 virus mutations in other parts of the country. So far, it is the Central Visayas region which had reported a spike in COVID-19 cases amid the confirmed presence of two “variants of concern” in the region.
(Eagle News Service)
