Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that certain provinces, highly urbanized cities and independent component cities were noticed to have an increase in Covid cases, comparing the periods of August 31 to September 13 versus August 17 to 30.
“Overall there are 53 provinces, highly urbanized cities, independent component cities with present increases in the number of cases and we are closely monitoring and we already coordinated with these different LGUs [local government units],” Vergeire said.
The top areas are: Cotabato City, Sarangani, Nueva Vizcaya, South Cotabato, General Santos City (Dadiangas), Tawi-Tawi, Dagupan City, Abra, Biliran, Puerto Princesa City, Cagayan de Oro City, La Union, Bataan, Sultan Kudarat, Butuan City, Ifugao, Aurora, Negros Occidental, Davao del Sur, and Capiz.
The health official also revealed that there were four clustering of cases in Calabarzon and in Bulacan.
As of September 15, there were 382 clusters in Calabarzon : Community, 358; Hospital/Health facility, 6 ; Jail/Prison, 4; and Others, 14.
Areas of clustering reported within the last 14 days from CALABARZON were as follows: 41 Communities, , 1 Hospital/Health Facility, 1 Jail/Prison, and 2 Others.
In Bulacan, 60 clustering were reported: Community, 58; and Jail/Prison, 2.
Four communities with clustering reported within the last 14 days.
Covid cases
As of 4 p.m. of September 16, the DOH logged 3,550 cases newly-confirmed cases.
The top regions with cases in the recent two weeks were National Capital Region (NCR) with 1,168 or 39 percent, Region 4A (808 or 27 percent and Region 3 (333 or 11 percent).
There were 524 recoveries. This brings the total number of recoveries to 207,858.
Meanwhile, 69 deaths were reported. The death toll stood at 4,732.
On the other hand, seven labs were not able to submit their data to the Covid-19 Data Repository System.
These labs are:
1. Dr. Jose N. Rodriguez Memorial Hospital and Sanitarium (TALA)
2. Lanao del Norte Covid-19 Testing Laboratory
3. Las Piñas General Hospital and Satellite Trauma Center
4. Metro Iloilo Hospital and Medical Center
5. Oriental Mindoro Provincial Hospital
6. Safeguard DNA Diagnostics
7. Valenzuela Hope Molecular Laboratory