MANILA, Philippines —The Duterte administration went on the defensive on Tuesday and said that the decision to reopen the economy is not to blame for the current surge in COVID-19 cases. Related Stories Record COVID-19 cases not convincing economic planners to change tackInstead, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque, he himself was infected with COVID-19, said more infectious variants now widely spread in the capital region are the main culprits for record COVID-19 cases in three of the past 4 days. Under this, a return to tighter modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) would have saved an estimated 266,194 COVID-19 cases from materializing but result into 58,000 more Metro Manila residents going hungry. An MECQ or a tighter version of that would have also prevented 11,626 COVID-19 cases from turning severe or critical, but deaths from other diseases would have also spiked to 78,599. So far, 1.12 million vaccines had been deployed, representing 98% of the donated vaccines currently used.

Source: Philippine Star March 23, 2021 05:48 UTC