Philippines posts all-time daily high of 28,707 Covid-19 cases

By The SUN 

Quezon City residents queue up for vaccines amid searing heat in race against Omicron (PNA)

The Philippines has reported 28,707 cases of Covid-19 on Sunday, Jan. 9, a record high since the pandemic swept across the country in March 2020.

This pushed up the country’s total number of coronavirus cases to 2,965,447, in what experts believe is driven by the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant.

Media reports in the Philippines say the new figure came a day after a previous record of 26,458 cases was announced on Saturday, Jan. 8.

However, a check with the official Covid-19 figures from the World Health Organization showed that the previous record high in the Philippines was set on Sept 9, 2021 or exactly four months ago, when 27,887 cases were logged.

According to the Department of Health, the surge in cases which started only last week raised the positivity rate to 44%, the highest daily figure ever recorded for the country. This means that more than two out of every five people tested for the virus came out positive.

CONTACT US!

The total number of active cases reached 128,114, the highest in over three months, or since Oct 2, 2021.

Despite the mounting figures, the DOH said the latest tally was based on tests conducted two days ago yet, when 14 laboratories failed to submit their data on time.

The newly confirmed cases are added to the overall figure only after further validation to ensure there is no duplication.

Press for details

The health department also reported 15 new deaths from Covid-19, only 11 of which happened this month. The rest happened from September to December last year, but were only recently recorded due to “late encoding.”

The overall death toll now stands at 52,150.

Meanwhile, recoveries from Covid-19 were up by 2,579 Sunday, bringing the total tally to 2,785,183 cases.

Two senior citizens got their jabs in Caloocan City Friday (PNA)

DOH said occupancy of Covid-19 beds nationwide were still at safe levels, owing to more cases with only mild to moderate symptoms. There have been widespread reports, too, of people scrambling to buy medicines for flu and colds, indicating an increasing desire for home isolation and treatment.

In Metro Manila, the occupancy rate for all bed types remains at over 50% but ward beds are now at a moderate level of 65% occupancy.

The rising number of infections which experts predict has yet to peak, has caused shopping malls to cut operating hours while motorists are being asked to show proof of vaccination at checkpoints in the National Capital Region as part of efforts to stem the surge.

Health officials are also floating the idea of putting Metro Manila back to Alert Level 4, or the country’s second-highest quarantine status.

Under this alert level, those below 18 years old, above 65 years old or with comorbidity or other health risks are not allowed to go out of the house except to buy food, medicine or other necessities.

PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE

Leisure venues such as cinemas, carnivals, children’s playrounds, karaoke bars, clubs, concert halls, theaters, casinos, or those used for horse racing, cockfights, lottery and betting, will be shut.

Gathering in residences with individuals not belonging to the same household is also prohibited under Alert Level 4.

Metro Manila is currently under Alert Level 5 until Jan 15.

PADALA NA!

Call us!

Migrant leader brushes aside call for FDWs to stay at home

 By Daisy CL Mandap 

Chater Road on Sunday remained busy though not as packed

The leader of one of the biggest migrant groups in Hong Kong has rebuffed renewed calls from the Labour Department for foreign domestic workers to stay at home on their rest days due to the spread of the Omicron variant in the community.

Dolores Balladares-Pelaez said today, Jan 9, that migrant workers need their only day off in the week to relax and get away from work pressure.

“Kailangan ng holiday. Kailangan lang sundin ang mga (health) protocol, pero hindi dapat maghigpit at gawing dahilan para hindi palabasin ang mga workers,” she said.

(We need our holiday. We just have to follow health protocols, but there is be no reason why migrant workers should be prevented from going out).

As she spoke, hundreds of FDWs, mostly Filipinos, went about their usual business on Chater Road and nearby Statue Square, as well as Edinburgh Place in Central. However, many nooks where workers would often hang out in large numbers had been fenced off or barricaded.

Pindutin para sa detalye

Once in a while, police officers accompanied by staff of some government departments would pass by to check on workers grouped together, but did not do more than remind some of them to stay in groups of four, and keep their distance from each other.

Roving officers tell Chater habitues to follow social distancing rules

A few workers could be seen with their masks lowered down to their chin, but they were either ignored by the police, or were just lucky to have escaped their attention.

However, migrant leaders who went about checking on their members and reminding them to comply with the social distancing rules reported seeing the police telling some workers not to eat together in public, as this would entail them taking them off their masks, which is risky.

PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE

In the morning, those who were squatting on the underpass connecting Chater Road to City Hall were reportedly told to move to other places. However, by the afternoon, the pedestrian walkway was turned into one big hawkers’ market, with both sellers and buyers clogging the passageway.

But Pelaez said workers who hang out in the area are generally well-behaved and mindful of the anti-gathering rules issued by the government.

HOW? PINDUTIN ANG AD

Their leaders also keep a watchful eye on them, well aware that violators could be told outright to pay a fixed penalty of $5,000 each, or risk being prosecuted.

Pelaez said there is no evidence suggesting that hanging out with their friends in open public spaces have caused FDWs to spread the coronavirus among themselves.

CONTACT US!

“Kahit sa kanilang studies, hindi naman nakita na sa tambayan nakukuha ang impeksyon. Doon din sa workplace nila nakukuha lagi,” she said. (Even the experts’ studies show that workers do not get infected in places where they hang out. They usually get it in their workplaces).

Balladares-Pelaez says workers are often infected at their workplaces

She was referring to the Indonesian domestic worker who appears to have spread the virus to three fellow helpers during church services, but was herself infected by her employer’s friend who visited them in their house.

Pelaez said she understood that the house guest should not be blamed for the cross-infection  as she was herself infected by her flight-attendant daughter, but the same thing should apply to migrant workers.

PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE

“Wala namang may gusto nun,” she said. (Nobody wanted that to happen).

If restrictions are to be imposed on workers’ movements, the same should apply to employers, Pelaez said. For a start, they should always be reminded not to invite too many people to their houses while the dine-in ban is imposed, as this poses a high risk to their entire household.

Such an advice would be timely, she said, with the approach of the Lunar New Year holidays.

“Let’s celebrate with just the family to prevent any cross infection,” Pelaez said.

PADALA NA!

Call us!

Neighbor of Indo DH tests positive, another infection linked to Wanchai party

By The SUN 

The Tai Po building was first locked down after the index patient tested positive Friday 

Residents of around 20 flats in Mei Sun building in Tai Po will be sent to a quarantine centre after a woman who lives five floors above a flat where three people found infected with Covid-19 earlier tested preliminary positive on Sunday, Jan 9.

The housing block was also put under a second lockdown Sunday night, amid fears the highly contagious Omicron variant of the coronavirus has spread among residents there.

Health officials who inspected the building earlier in the day said the 66-year-old woman who lives alone in unit 10D has tested positive after an Indonesian helper, her employer and a teenage girl who live in 5D came down with Covid-19.

The authorities fear the virus spread through the building because of the altered pipes in the tenth floor unit.

Microbiologist Yuen Kwok-yung said the contamination may have been due to what is known as the chimney effect, where warm air rises in a pipe, as what happened with the waste water pipe in this case.

“The air reached unit 10D, where the washroom had been altered and the shower had not been used and hence the u-shaped trap in the drainage pipe was probably dry. So... the [contaminated] air entered the unit and infected this lady,” he said.

Pindutin para sa detalye

Dr Edwin Tsui, head of the Centre for Health Protection, said all unit D residents from the sixth to the 24th floors of the block would be taken into quarantine as soon as possible, while other residents would be tested during a lockdown on Sunday night.

The patient reportedly tested negative when the building was locked down on Thursday, but another test on Saturday came back positive.

Also among the preliminary positive cases was that of another guest at the birthday party in Wanchai of a delegate to the National People’s Congress, and an unlinked case involving a 20-year-old unvaccinated woman working parttime at SOGO department store in Causeway Bay.

PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE

At the regular CHP briefing today, Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the communicable diseases branch, said the saleslady last reported for work in SOGO on Dec 28, and had also worked at her family’s pharmacy in H.A.N.D.S shopping mall in Tuen Mun.

The woman lives in Tower 8 of the Aegean Coast residential development in Tuen Mun.

Chuang identified the second woman as a 43-year-old uninvited guest to NPC delegate Witman Hung's birthday party last Monday. She lives in Tower 2 of Harbour Green in Tai Kok Tsui.

HOW? PINDUTIN ANG AD

She said the woman who works at Cable TV Tower in Tsuen Wan was not on Hung’s guest list but went there after 9:30am, along with the 37-year-old woman who was the first confirmed patient from the gathering.

"[This woman] actually went with [the index case] ... and also they had drinks and snacks together before they went to the party," said Chuang.

She said the second woman got the infection from the first patient either from sharing drinks and snacks, or during the party.

But either way, she said the CHP’s classification of close contacts at the party was still valid.

CONTACT US!

What she was more concerned about now, said Chuang, was that there appeared to be around 190 guests at the party, instead of the previous estimate of 180 or so. This meant that there were guests that remained unaccounted for, and were not tested.

The buildings where the two preliminary positive cases live were also put under lockdown tonight.

Chuang says the guests at the Wanchai party who are unaccounted for must step forward

Chuang reported 33 additional confirmed cases of Covid-19 Sunday, taking Hong Kong’s total tally to 12,935.

The new cases consist of 27 classified as imported, five linked to imported cases and one possibly import-related, involving a woman who works as an airplane cleaner at HK airport.

Thirty of the cases involved mutant strains, two test results were pending, while the viral load of the remaining patient was insufficient for mutation test.

PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE

The patients were made up of 17 males and 16 females, aged 11 months to 71 years old.

The five cases linked to a previous infection included the 42-year-old female employer of the Indonesian helper, as well as her 13-year-old daughter; a three-year-old boy who had breakfast at Six Garden restaurant in Tai Hang at the same time as a previously reported infection, a 71-year-old woman who visited the North Point workplace of two earlier confirmed patients and a three-year-old family member of an aircrew who tested positive earlier.

Meanwhile, genome sequencing analysis by the Department of Health’s public laboratory uncovered 20 additional Omicron cases, raising the total number found in Hong Kong to 265.

Two passenger flights which both arrived on Jan 7 were also suspended from flying to Hong Kong for the next two weeks. These are flight SQ007 operated by Singapore Airlines from San Francisco, USA, which had eight passengers who tested positive on arrival, and NH811 operated by All Nippon Airways from Tokyo Japan which carried six infected passengers.

The other imported cases flew in from Canada and the US, India and Saudi Arabia via Qatar, Argentina via Germany, Italy, Denmark and Maldives via Qatar, United Kingdom via Thailand, Canada via Japan, and Philippines via Japan involving a foreign domestic helper.

PADALA NA!

Call us!

False positive case allows some party guests to leave quarantine

By The SUN 

About 100 guests at the controversial party will still have to spend 21 days at Penny's Bay

One of the guests at a birthday party hosted by a mainland legislator on Jan 3 has turned out to have tested false positive, so about a dozen people who were moved to Penny’s Bay Quarantine Centre after being identified as her close contacts would be allowed to leave.

However, about 100 other guests including top government officials and legislators will still have to remain at the quarantine facility as they were deemed to be close contacts of another female attendee who came in at about 9:30pm.

PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE

The false positive guest, identified in media reports as RTHK host Joyce Yeung, was at Witman Hung’s birthday party at Reserva Iberica restaurant in Wanchai only between 6pm and 8pm, so all those who were there with her and left before 9:30 were spared the quarantine order.

Among the prominent guests who were immediately moved to Penny’s Bay were Home Affairs Secretary Caspar Tsui, Immigration Director Au Ka-wing and Political Assistant to the Development Secretary Allen Fung.

Pindutin para sa detalye

Angered by the revelation that her top officials had joined a large gathering amid the worsening spread of the Omicron variant, Chief Executive Carrie Lam ordered a thorough investigation of the incident.

On Friday night, after learning of Yeung’s possible infection, she also issued a statement ordering the temporary suspension of the quarantined officials and making them use their vacation leave during their 21-day isolation.

HOW? PINDUTIN ANG AD

However, the Centre for Health Protection said in a statement Saturday night that further tests by the Department of Health’s public laboratory showed the sample taken from the preliminary positive case was possibly contaminated by vaccine strain.

The sample did not carry the N501Y, L452R, E484K or T478K mutant strains of the coronavirus but carried the D614D strain which is compatible with a vaccine strain, said the CHP statement.

CONTACT US!

After being taken to hospital, Yeung tested negative twice and did not develop any symptoms. Her lungs were also clear.

Learning about her negative test results, CHP experts made an on-site inspection of the doctor’s clinic. There they learned that the doctor administered Covid-19 vaccine injection for 13 clients on Jan 6, resulting in a possible environmental contamination.

PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE

But one of the experts told reporters the doctor did nothing wrong, as he had washed his hands before and after vaccinating his patients, and his clinic was clean and well-maintained.

However, microbiologist Yuen Kwok-yung suggested doctors clean their clinics with diluted bleach each time they administer a vaccine to reduce the chance of contamination.

“Initial result revealed that the positive test results of the sample were not caused by infection. Hence, the relevant case will not be classified as SARS-CoV-2 virus infection” said the statement.

All her close contacts who had been moved to a quarantine center would be released.

PADALA NA!

Call us!

Employer, son got infected by Indo DH linked to dance cluster, CHP says

 by Daisy CL Mandap 

All those who went to Hins Cheung's concert on Jan 3 will be told to get tested

A woman and her 13-year-old son who live in Tai Po are among more than 30 preliminary positive cases for Covid-10 reported today, Jan 8, and both appear to have been infected by their Indonesian domestic helper.

This was disclosed by Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan of the Centre for Health Protection in a press briefing today. She also expressed concern about the employer having attended the Hins Cheung concert with her husband on Jan 3.

Dr Chuang said the CHP is now looking into how many people were at the concert and all of them will be required to undergo compulsory testing.

PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE

The employer’s son, on the other hand, last attended his school in Taipo on Jan 5 and along with the rest of his family, was moved to Penny’s Bay Quarantine Centre on Jan 7, where he tested positive at the same time as his mother.

The Indonesian helper, identified as Case No 12854, is suspected to have caught the coronavirus while attending services at Bethel House on Gordon Road in North Point. She was there from Dec 31 to Jan 3.

A fellow Indonesian helper who in turn caught the infection from her employer’s friend who visited them at home in Causeway Bay, was also at the church services on Jan 1 and 2.

Pindutin para sa detalye

Two other helpers who also attended the services were today confirmed as among the 37 new cases in Hong Kong, bringing the city’s total tally to 12,902.

Officials today started a campaign asking FDHs to help fight the spread of Covid-19

Of these, 30 were imported, six were import-related and one was categorized as local as the source of her infection could not be found. Sixteen were asymptomatic while the rest experienced symptoms.

Almost all, or 29 cases, involved mutant strains linked with Omicron, six test results were still pending, while two did not have sufficient specimen sample for testing.

The untraceable case involves a 58-year-old unvaccinated woman whose job required her to visit supermarkets and other stores to scan barcodes of goods. She felt unwell on Jan 6 with a sore throat, and tested positive in a home test.

HOW? PINDUTIN ANG AD

She went to Ruttonjee Hospital on Jan 7 where her infection was confirmed, with a Ct. value of 17.7 indicating a heavy viral load, or that she was highly infectious. She had two mutant strains indicating she likely has Omicron.

Among the places she has visited are St Paul’s hospital in Causeway Bay, Wanchai indoor public market and the Lockhart Road wet market. All these places will be placed under a CTN.

Another untraceable infection was among the preliminary positive cases reported today. It involves a 39-year-old aircraft cleaner who tested negative on Jan 2 to 4. But after developing a fever on Jan 5 she went to North Lantau Hospital where she tested positive for Covid-19 with a heavy viral load.

CONTACT US!

Chuang said it was likely she caught the virus at work.

The six cases linked with imported cases include a 62-year-old woman who had a meal together with two previously confirmed cases at Moon Palace restaurant on Dec 27, a four-year-old girl whose father was previously infected, a 74-year-old male whose colleague is also a confirmed case, a 32-year-old woman who had contact with another patient on Jan 2, and the two Indonesian helpers aged 39 and 44.

Meanwhile, the CHP confirmed eight more Omicron cases, raising to 240 the total number of patients with the highly infectious variant found in Hong Kong.

PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE

The CHP reminded that everyone who had been to places where cases with mutant strains had lived or visited are required to undergo compulsory testing and undergo self-monitoring until the 21^st day.

The details of the buildings and date of testing www.coronavirus.gov.hk/pdf/CTN_Specified_premises_and_Dates_of_Testing.pdf.

In addition, the CHP announced that all those previously infected with Covid-19 and have met the discharge criteria may be allowed to undergo the additional 14-day compulsory isolation either at their home or other accommodation.

This is due to the recent spike in coronavirus cases with mutant strains and the corresponding increase in the demand for quarantine and isolation in government facilities such as Penny's Bay and the North Lantau Infection Control Centre.

PADALA NA!

Call us!