ANOTHER five consecutive days of over 100 deaths from coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) per day and new infections exceeding 7,000 for the second day in a row were recorded Sunday, June 13, 2021.
In its case bulletin Sunday, the Department of Health (DOH) reported 7,302 new Covid-19 cases.
The daily count exceeded 7,000 in three out of the last four days, reaching a high of 8,097 on June 12. It was also the highest daily tally in the last 15 days.
The 7,302 new cases brought the cumulative case count to 1,315,639. Fifteen duplicates, including nine recoveries and one death, were removed from the count.
The DOH case bulletin also recorded 137 additional mortalities, which included 65 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries.
These raised the Covid-19 death toll in the country to 22,788. The case fatality rate remained at 1.73 percent.
For the second time this month, the daily death toll exceeded 100 for five days in a row. This happened on June 2 to 6, and on June 9 to 13.
There were 7,701 recoveries listed on Sunday's case bulletin, bringing the total to 1,232,986.
The positivity rate was still high at 12.4 percent out of 50,757 samples tested on June 11. Only one laboratory failed to submit its data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System.
The 8,097 infections on June 12 included high numbers of cases recorded in cities outside Metro Manila and provinces in Calabarzon, Central Visayas, Western Visayas and Davao.
Only Quezon City among the cities in Metro Manila listed new cases in three digits at 191. The 15 other cities and one municipality recorded less than 100 new cases on June 12.
Based on the DOH tracker, Negros Oriental Province in Central Visayas had the highest number of new cases at 327 on June 12.
It was followed by Batangas with 312, Laguna with 281, Cavite with 225, Bacolod City with 219, Iloilo Province with 211, Davao City with 208, Negros Occidental Province with 190, Bohol Province and Iloilo City with 186 each, and Pampanga with 184 cases.
DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire has cautioned against calling these areas with a high number of new cases as epicenter of the Covid-19 epidemic in the country.
She said an epicenter refers to an area that was the source of the infection. It is also meant to connote the area as a hotspot for the infection.
“We discourage the use of the term epicenter in describing the rise of cases in an area. These areas are not the origin of the Covid-19 virus. Moreover, using the term epicenter detracts from other surrounding areas which may be equally or more affected by Covid-19,” Vergeire said.
She said some areas in the National Capital Region (NCR) and Davao City were flagged because of the high to critical risk health care and ICU utilization rates as well as their high growth and attack rates.
“We do not compare counts alone as they are all of equal importance based on these metrics,” Vergeire said.
In the last two weeks to June 12, Cavite remained at the top of the list of cities and provinces with the highest cases, but the 14-day running total of cases decreased to 2,750 on June 12 from 3,318 on June 5.
Other cities and provinces on the list also posted week-on-week declines. Laguna had 2,603 on June 12 compared to 3,085 on June 5, while Davao City’s cases for the period went down to 1,959 from 2,203.
Quezon City posted a total of 1,928 in the last two weeks, lesser than the 3,163 total on June 5, while Bulacan’s two-week case count declined to 1,910 on June 12 from 2,515 on June 5.
Among the regions, the National Capital Region (NCR) and Calabarzon continued to post a decline in their two-week case counts to 9,854 and 9,484 on June 12, respectively, from 13,651 and 11,410 on June 5.
Davao Region entered the top five, as it posted 4,023 total cases in the last 14 days to June 12.
These were lower than Central Luzon’s 7,586 and Western Visayas’ 7,498 for the period.
Globally, Covid-19 cases increased to 175.66 million with 3.79 million deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. (Marites Villamor-Ilano with a report from HDT)