Before the end of Wednesday, March 11, 2020, the Department of Health (DOH) recorded another 16 confirmed cases of coronavirus patient in the country.

The confirmation was declared by Health Assistant Secretary Ma. Rosario Vergeire during a press briefing.

The newest additional count of 16 confirmed cases of coronavirus gives the total of 49 coronavirus patients in the country, the new pathogen that originated in Wuhan City in China.

Vergeire explained that the sudden influx in number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the country was due to newly declared localized transmission. She also said that the other factor of the rise in number is the stringent surveillance initiated by the DOH to detect infected patients.

Vergeire noted that she has already on hand information of the newly infected patients. She said that six of the patients out of the 16 newly confirmed coronavirus cases are foreign nationals.

“Wala akong mga pangalan ngunit meron po akong gender and age,” she said. 

However, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III explained in advance opinion about the reason of sudden increase in number that drastically spikes to the number of 49 confirmed cases as of writing, he said that it is because of the so called “community transmission.”

“What we have now is localized transmission in the areas we have earlier mentioned. But the situation can very quickly progress into a community transmission, which means, there could be a larger area of affected communities,” Duque bared during the hearing of the House Committee on Health earlier on Wednesday.

Duque noted that since the first case of coronavirus in the country he was careful to point out that the first three (3) had travel history to Wuhan, the place coronavirus begun. He clarified that the first three (3) were considered imported cases because the patients were infected abroad.

In contrast, the newly infected 16 new cases is due to the community transmission based on the short term scenario and contact tracing.

“I have said time and again that it’s going to be a very real occurrence over the very short term,” he added.