The Philippines recorded 15,789 new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases on Wednesday, Jan. 26.
Currently, there are 230,410 active COVID-19 cases nationwide, the Department of Health (DOH) said. So far, the Philippines has confirmed 3,475,293 infections since the pandemic started.
Of the active cases, 6,902 are asymptomatic, 218,711 are mild, 2,982 are moderate, 1,507 are severe, and 308 are critical.
In an advisory, the DOH said a "sustained case increase is observed in Visayas and Mindanao, showing 87.35 percent and 164.72 percent increase in their respective cases from the previous week."
Western Visayas, Central Visayas, and Davao Region "have been the top regions in the VisMin island groups based on their seven-day moving average since Jan. 19, 2022, with bed utilization at moderate risk and ICU utilization at low-moderate risk," the DOH said.
DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that COVID-19 cases in Metro Manila were already declining. However, they will still study if the area’s alert level status can be downgraded.
“With that improvement, nakikita natin based on our metrics kung bababa pa yung kanilang average daily attack rate in the coming days----hindi naman po malayo na (With that improvement, we can see based on our metrics if their average daily attack rate will further decrease in the coming days ---- it is not far off that) we can deescalate. But we need to closely monitor first so that we can be very sure,” she said in an interview with ABS-CBN News Channel.
Meanwhile, the DOH also recorded 32,712 additional recoveries and 66 new fatalities on Wednesday. These figures brought the recovery tally to 3,191,219 while the death toll reached 53,664.
The DOH also reminded the public of the importance of quarantine and isolation.
“Quarantine and isolation is one of the best preventive measures against the spreading virus. That’s why at the onset of symptoms, immediately isolate to prevent further transmission and mutations,” it said.