MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines has noticed an increase in coronavirus infections due to intensified testing, the presidential spokesman said Friday, protecting the country’s reaction to the pandemic after beating Indonesia to record peak cases in Southeast Asia.
Infections have increased nearly seven times to more than 122,000, while deaths have more than doubled since a strict blockade was lifted in June. This led the government to re-impose a blockade in and around Manila before this week.
“While we don’t need to see those numbers, it’s the result of our intensified tests,” Harry Roque, spokesman for President Rodrigo Duterte, said in a briefing.
“This is that we know where our COVID enemy is,” Roque said, adding that this allowed the fitness government to track, isolate and treat patients properly.
Eighty medical teams representing more than a million Filipino doctors and nurses warned last week about a fitness formula collapse without tighter controls and called for more and follow-up.
Nearly 1.6 million other people have been controlled in the country, which is less than 2% of its population of 107 million. The Philippines has announced plans to control another 10 million people through the last quarter of 2021.
Currently, there are one hundred control labs in the Philippines, up from just one in February.
The Philippines is ahead of Indonesia, which has assessed 951,910 of its nearly 270 million inhabitants, well below capital testing in neighbouring countries such as Singapore and Malaysia.
On Friday, the Philippine Ministry of Health reported another 3,379 cases, bringing the total number of infections shown to 122,754. Deaths greater than 24 to 2,168.
The country now bears the burden of cases in East Asia, adding to China, which dismayed many Filipinos.
“There is still no massive evidence to date. I think that’s the solution and the only way to reduce COVID-19 cases in the country,” said Ronald Rueda, a motorcycle courier in Manila.
Reporting through Neil Jerome Morales and Adrian Portugal
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