The holiday rush, and the combined forces of delta and omicron changed the landscape of the pandemic in the Philippines within a 7 day period. The exponential rise in cases is a major cause for concern because of its potential effect on both the healthcare system and economy.

The Health Agency reports a positivity rate of almost 20% for December 31, where only 26,122 tests were done resulting in 4,600 new cases announced today. This pushes the active cases past 21,000 and the mild to more than 75% of the total active cases.

There are 25 additional deaths announced today.

THE WEEK IN REVIEW

There will be a mix of data for this week because within a 7 day period, the numbers exponentially rose in the country. From a daily average of < 300 cases, yesterday ended with 3,610 or more than an 12x rise of new cases (and an increase in positivity rate from 0.9% to 16%) within the same time interval.

In summary, you're really not going to see the worse of data this week. Undeniably, these numbers will be sustained for awhile before it gets better. The problem is that 70% of the total national cases are concentrated in the NCR, which is always the driving force or the epicenter of this pandemic in the Philippines.

While the effective reproduction rate as of December 27 shows the increase in Rt of the Philippines, it jumped from lowest Rt last week to third highest in select Asian countries as of this date. With the increase in cases, the country will most likely see a rapid increase in reproduction quicker than expected.