Just be careful, and wear your face shields.

President Duterte gave these reminders to Filipinos as he appeared to acknowledge more and more the rapidly increasing coronavirus disease (COVID-19) figures in the country.

"Let me just also give my own take. Simply the COVID cases are rising all throughout the country, tumataas po (It's been rising)," he said during the pre-recorded "Talk to the People" public briefing on late Wednesday night, Sept. 15. The briefing was aired on Thursday morning, Sept. 16.

"Maraming nahahawa (Many people are getting infected), a lot of them are afflicted all over the country na. At (And) it used to be that the children were not affected by the contamination noon (back then), pero ngayon pati bata (but now even children are affected). So just be careful,," Duterte said.

"Let me just ask you to, again, exercise the cautionary measures of washing, then distancing, and wearing the mask. And of course, I said, if you will the --- itong (this) face shield will provide an added premium of --- well, of course, prevention," he said.

Although face shields offer minimal protection to the wearer, Duterte said that having them on could mean the difference between life or death.

"It might not really be a big percentage but even if it’s just a five percent more protected because you have the shield, eh mas maganda na ‘yan (that's better than not having one). Ano ba naman ‘yang (What is) inconvenience to the fact of getting sick and probably dying? Lalo na itong COVID ngayon (Especially with the COVID Delta variant that we now have), it has affected the children also," he explained.

In past few weeks, the Chief Executive tended to look at the bright side of things when reacting to COVID tallies.

This has included highlighting the country's low infection to death ratio as well as the high number of recorded recoveries from the respiratory illness.

However, Duterte finally noted in his latest briefing the significant number of COVID deaths in the country.

"We are put on notice that ang mga ospital natin punong-puno at saka maraming namatay na sa atin (our hospitals are full and a lot from us have died), it’s 30,000 plus. It’s going to increase as we travel this journey through the COVID pandemic," he said.

Figures released by the Department of Health (DOH) Thursday showed that the country's COVID death toll has breached the 36,000-mark.

The number of infections recorded since last year is now at 2,304,192. The highest single-day figure for new infections--26,303--was only recorded last Saturday.