The Philippines on Wednesday logged 1,190 new COVID-19 cases as medical frontliners receive their booster shots to better protect them against the virus.
The day's tally brought active cases to 23,846. There were 2,759 new recoveries and 309 new deaths, the Department of Health said.
Of the day's deaths, only 18 occurred in November 2021, with the remaining 291 deaths occurring in October 2021 due to late encoding of death information to COVIDKaya.
Overall, a total of 2,820,494 COVID-19 cases have been reported since the pandemic began in March 2020, of which 2,750,531 have recovered and 46,117 died.
As of Wednesday, medical workers can get one of the four vaccine brands as a booster: Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, Sinovac, or AstraZeneca. The interval for booster should be at least six months after completion of two doses, the DOH said.
The Philippines is rolling out the alert-based quarantine system nationwide in phases. Under this five-step system, larger areas of jurisdiction can opt to implement granular lockdowns in high-risk areas only.
Wearing of face shields in areas under Alert Levels 3, 2, and 1 are voluntary, and are mandatory under Alert Level 5. For areas under Alert Level 4, local government units and private establishments are given the discretion to mandate the use of face shields.
President Rodrigo Duterte in his Tuesday night address said he was making wearing of face shields voluntary in areas under the three lowest alert levels.
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