- PH logs highest number of infections in 7 months
- New P3 variant confirmed
The OCTA Research group warned daily new cases of COVID-19 may hit 7,000 by the end of March after the country logged Saturday 5,000 infections—the highest in almost seven months.
In an interview on Dobol B sa News TV, Dr. Guido David said Saturday’s record already breached OCTA’s earlier projection of 5,000 daily new cases this month.
“It can really hit 7,000. And that’s being conservative,” he said.
“I don’t want to give a too high a number because I might be accused of fear-mongering,” David added.
Saturday’s fresh infections brought the total number of active cases to 56,679.
At least 72 new fatalities were reported, bringing the death toll to 12,766 or 2.07 percent of the overall case count.
David said the estimated reproduction number may have already increased to nearly 2. An R value above 1 can lead to exponential growth.
“This means that this is worse than our projections,” David said, adding the surge may be connected to COVID-19 variants.
“The previous virus that was spreading earlier was not as transmissible, not as strong, not as cutting,” he added.
The country has detected its first case of the more transmissible P.1 variant from Brazil, the DOH said Saturday.
The Health department said a returning overseas Filipino from Western Visayas was found positive for the variant after a sequencing done by the Philippine Genome Center.
The DOH also confirmed 59 new cases with the B.1.1.7 variant first reported in the United Kingdom as well as 32 new cases of the B.1.351 first reported in South Africa.
Of the additional UK variant cases, 30 are locals, 18 are returning overseas Filipinos, while 11 are currently being verified, raising the total to 177.
The DOH said 16 of the local cases are from the Cordillera region, 10 from Metro Manila, two from Central Luzon, and two from Calabarzon.
Meanwhile, 19 of the patients infected with the South Africa variant are local cases from Metro Manila, one from Cagayan Valley, one from Northern Mindanao, and a returning overseas Filipino.
This brought the number of South Africa variant cases in the country to 90.
Meanwhile, the DOH confirmed the P.3 variant that is unique to the Philippines but said it should not be called the Philippine variant.
“We want to do away with calling this as Philippine variant. It’s not an acceptable practice and we try to veer away from that because it causes discrimination,” said Anna Ong-Lim, an expert-member of the DOH technical working group.
She said the mutations N501Y and E484K — two mutations of concern that were detected in Central Visayas last month — have been assigned as the P.3 variant.
Japanese health authorities earlier reported detecting the P.3 variant from a traveler from the Philippines.
Ong-Lim said that the Philippine Genome Center has reported 85 cases with E484K and N501Y mutations to the global reporting system Phylogenetic Assignment of Named Global Outbreak Lineages (PANGOLIN).
The DOH said the P.3 variant belongs to the B.1.1.28 lineage, to which the P.1 variant also belongs.