The Department of Health reported 232,072 COVID-19 cases with 3,714 confirmed cases based on the total tests done by 93 out of 113 current operational labs.
The report emerged as Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire belied reports a new and more fatal SARS-CoV-2 strain, the virus causing coronavirus disease (COVID-19), had been spreading in the country.
“There is no new strain of the virus here in the Philippines. It is very dangerous and irresponsible to say that we now have a different strain here in the country,” she said in a media briefing.
Vergeire was referring to a social media post which reportedly read that “due to rapid and uncontrolled transmission in the past months, the virus has clearly had enough opportunity to mutate into a more dangerous strain”.
The health official said the DOH previously detected the G614 variant of SARS-CoV-2 and while this specific strain is said to have an increased viral load, “this does not automatically mean that it is more infectious nor it is more fatal.”
She clarified that no age group was invisible nor immune from the coronavirus.
“With the increase in the cumulative cases, we shall see more cases among all ages,” she said.
Citing data from the DOH, Vergeire said the group with the highest number of cases were aged 20 to 49 years old, not due to an alleged new strain targeting them but “because they are usually the ones going out of their houses to go to work and to do errands.”
“Despite this increase in cumulative cases, we still see that mortalities are prevalent among the older age groups and those with co-morbidities,” she said.
Meanwhile, she advised the public not to “fully” rely on anecdotal information about COVID-19.
“While they may be true, they are only experiences and observations of a handful of people and not a representative of the Philippines. We remind the public to always use evidence-based and science-based information,” she said.
DOH likewise announced 1,088 recoveries, bringing the total of recoveries to 160,549.
There were also 49 deaths, 5 occurred in September (10 percent), 35 in August (71 percent) 4 in July (8 percent) 3 in June (6 percent) and 2 in May (4 percent).
Deaths were from NCR (31 or 63 percent), Region 7 (7 or 14 percent), Region 3 (3 or 6 percent), Region 4A (3 or 6 percent), Region 6 (1 or 2 percent), Region 9 (1 or 2 percent), Region 10 (1 or 2 percent), Region 11 (1 or 2 percent), and Region 4B (1 or 2 percent).
Of the 3,714 reported cases Friday, the DOH said 3,259 (88 percent) occurred within the recent 14 days (August 22 – September 4, 2020).
At the same time, Vergeire said the DOH was still observing the decreasing number of new COVID-19 cases reported in the Philippines, pointing out that a reliable analysis would only be possible if the trend went on for a week.
“We wait for seven days so that we have this seven-day moving average and then we will analyze,” she added.