(Eagle News) — The Philippines reported 4,578 additional cases today, March 12, the country’s new record high of additional COVID-19 cases in a single day in six months.
Based on Department of Health data, the additional cases pushed the COVID-19 active cases in the Philippines to 52,012.
It said eight duplicate cases were removed from the total case count of 611,618.
Twenty-six cases that were tagged as recovered were reclassified as deaths.
Of the active cases, the DOH said 92.2 percent were mild, 4.1 percent asymptomatic, 1.5 percent critical, 1.5 percent severe, and 0.71 percent were moderate.
Recoveries rose to 546,912 including the 272 additional ones.
Eighty-seven additional deaths pushed the COVID-19 death toll to 12,694.
The OCTA research group has said there was a surge in COVID-19 cases in the Philippines, possibly due to the COVID-19 virus variants detected.
The DOH has said, however, that the surge was due to increased mobility and the failure to follow minimum health protocols, exacerbated by the virus variants.
According to the OCTA research group, 12 cities in Metro Manila were in the list of 15 areas in the Philippines that are so far exhibiting an upward trend in COVID-19 cases.
The group said these Metro Manila cities are Quezon City, Manila, Pasay, Makati, Parañaque, Taguig, Caloocan, Pasig, Malabon, Valenzuela, Marikina, and Navotas.
It said the whole of Metro Manila, now classified as “high-risk,” averaged 1,546 new infections daily over the past week.
That brought the reproduction number–or the number of infections arising from a single COVID-19 case– to 1.86.
According to health authorities, a reproduction number of 1 or higher means there is sustained COVID-19 transmission.
On Thursday night, Metro Manila mayors agreed to impose a common curfew of 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. starting Monday in a bid to curb the COVID-19 spread.
