pinay<3pinoy

(BusinessWorld) PHILIPPINES posted 6,835 coronavirus infections on Monday, the seventh straight day the tally remained below the 10,000 mark.

This brought the total to 3.6 million, the Department of Health (DoH) said in a bulletin. The death toll hit 54,538 after 12 more patients died, while recoveries rose by 16,330 to 3.45 million.

The agency said 19.1% of 36,773 samples tested positive for the coronavirus on Feb. 5, way above the 5% threshold set by the World Health Organization (WHO).

There were 116,720 active cases, 7,806 of which did not show symptoms, 103,900 were mild, 3,184 were moderate, 1,495 were severe and 335 were critical.

DoH said 98% of the latest cases occurred on Jan. 25 to Feb. 7. The top regions with new cases in the past two weeks were Metro Manila with 949, Western Visayas with 822 and Central Visayas with 624 infections. All of the deaths occurred in January… Read More

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) Metro Manila — The country’s presidential adviser for COVID-19 response admitted Monday that the government is preparing for a potential “slowdown” in vaccination in localities, just a day before the campaign period for national candidates starts.

Vince Dizon, also the National Task Force Deputy Chief Implementer against COVID-19, was asked in an interview with CNN Philippines’ The Source whether vaccination efforts will be hampered this election season.

“I hope not. But we are preparing for a potential slowdown in vaccination efforts since most of these are in the LGU level,” Dizon said.

He noted that the government intends to decentralize vaccination by authorizing more clinics, pharmacies, and even other private sector facilities like gas stations and toll booths to “unburden” local governments during poll season… Read More

(CNN Philippines) Metro Manila — The total number of COVID-19 infections in the country surpassed 3.6 million on Saturday after 7,689 more infections were recorded by the Department of Health (DOH).

Of the newly reported cases, 88% or 6,777 occurred in the past 14 days, or from Jan. 23 to Feb. 5.

The regions with the highest number of new infections in that period were Central Visayas (1,022 or 15%), Davao Region (830 or 12%), and Metro Manila (748 or 11%).

The tally is at 3,601,471 with 3.8% or 136,436 active cases or currently sick patients. Of the active cases, 124,476 have mild symptoms, 7,069 have no symptoms, 3,106 are in moderate condition, 1,468 have severe symptoms and 317 are in critical condition.

Only one fatality was added to the death toll now at 54,214 or 1.51% of all infections. The lone fatality was traced back to May 2021. It was belatedly reported due to late encoding of information to the COVIDKaya data storage system.

Meanwhile, 22,539 others got well, increasing the recovery count to 3,410, 821, which is 94.7% of the case total.

The DOH said it reclassified one initially tagged survivor as among the dead after validation and deleted 205 duplicate cases, including 116 recoveries and one fatality… Read More

(PhilStar) MANILA, Philippines (Updated 2:01 p.m.) — Kingdom of Jesus Christ, The Name Above Every Name founder and President Rodrigo Duterte’s spiritual adviser, Apollo Quiboloy, is now wanted by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation along with two others over trafficking charges.

The FBI released wanted posters for Quiboloy and KOJC officials Teresita Dandan and Helen Panilag following their indictment in November 2021.

Quiboloy was indicted for conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion and sex trafficking of children; sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion; conspiracy; and bulk cash smuggling.

The FBI said Quiboloy is wanted “for his alleged participation in a labor trafficking scheme that brought church members to the United States, via fraudulently obtained visas, and forced the members to solicit donations for a bogus charity, donations that actually were used to finance church operations and the lavish lifestyles of its leaders.”.. Read More

(BusinessWorld) FIVE PRESIDENTIAL aspirants attended a widely broadcast presidential forum to lay down the specifics of their six-year plan if they are elected as executive chief in May.

During the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP) Presidential Forum, which stretched out over three-and-a-half hours on Friday, the five presidential aspirants who attended discussed a wide range of topics, from unemployment insurance to housing, from corruption to the situation in the South China Sea.

Vice-President Maria Leonor “Leni” G. Robredo said she plans to focus on providing assistance to small businesses and strengthen local industries.

Public employment programs and unemployment insurance programs will also be enforced to provide for those who lost their source of livelihood, especially during the pandemic, she said.

She vowed that under her leadership, discrimination in jobs will be removed as the age of an individual and their educational degree will no longer affect their right to work… Read More

(CNN Philippines) Metro Manila – A total of 780,000 Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine doses procured by the national government for the vaccination of children aged 5-11 arrived Friday night after being delayed for a day.

The Pfizer shots were supposed to be delivered Thursday night, but was pushed back the next day due to logistical issues.

The start of the vaccination of five to 11 year olds in some areas in Metro Manila and Calabarzon was also moved from Friday to Monday, Feb. 7, because of the delay.

Vaccine czar Carlito Galvez said the rollout of vaccines for the age group in other regions will start on Feb. 14.

Galvez added the national government ordered 30 million Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine shots for the first six months of the year, half of those are expected to arrive in the first quarter.

He said another shipment of 780,000 doses will be delivered to the country on Feb. 12 or 14, while 1.2 million doses will arrive in the third week of February.

“Ang panawagan po natin sa ating mga magulang, kailangan po talaga mabuo ‘yung ating programa na buong pamilya po ang ating mabakunahan,” Galvez told CNN Philippines’ News Night on Friday.

[Translation: We are appealing to our parents, we need to complete our program of the whole family being vaccinated against COVID-19.]

Galvez also said vaccinating children will help ease movement restrictions and allow the gradual return to face-to-face classes… Read More

(SunStar) WHILE mandatory quarantine is no longer required for returning overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (Owwa) on Friday, February 4, 2022, said it expects some 10 percent to still need to stay in hotel facilities.

In a virtual press briefing, Owwa Administrator Hans Leo Cacdac said not all returning OFWs are expected to skip quarantine requirements.

“The guidelines only cater to the fully vaccinated. Those not fully vaccinated still need to be quarantined,” said Cacdac.

“By our estimates, there is around 10 percent of arrivals still needing to be billeted,” he added.

The Owwa chief cited as basis the number of OFWs that were discharged from quarantine by February 1, when the new guidelines took effect.

“There are some 1,500 OFWs still currently in quarantine facilities. This was a drastic reduction as compared to around 9,000 two weeks ago,” said Cacdac.

Given such decongestion of quarantine facilities, the labor official noted how it will benefit returning OFWs as they will have more time with their families… Read More

(SunStar) THE Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday, February 3, 2022, reported for the third straight day below 10,000 fresh cases of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in the Philippines.

In its 4 p.m. Thursday case bulletin, the DOH logged 8,702 new cases of Covid-19, bringing the country’s caseload to 3,586,461.

The health department said of the 8,702 reported cases Thursday, 8,463 occurred from January 21 to February 3.

The top regions with cases in the recent two weeks were Western Visayas with 1,039 cases or 12 percent, Central Visayas with 799 or nine percent and Davao Region with 785 or nine percent.

The Philippines’ positivity rate stood at 25.5 percent from the 42,446 tested on February 1.

Active cases nationwide also decreased slightly to 153,335 or 4.3 percent of the total cases.

Of the active cases, 96.8 percent were mild and asymptomatic, or 144,493 and 4,923 cases, respectively. A total of 3,067 were moderate, 1,528 were severe, and 324 were critical active cases.

The country’s death toll also increased to 54,168, with 71 mortalities reported Thursday. The fatality rate stood at 1.51 percent… Read More