No End in Sight to Rising COVID Infections

New COVID-19 infections stood at 400,741 as of Wednesday morning, surpassing 400,000 for the first time and raising the cumulative total to 7.63 million.

The spike seems to be a result of the easing of lockdown restrictions and abandoning of mandatory and more time-consuming PCR tests for COVID infections.

This figure is far higher than the government had predicted. Health authorities said Monday that daily new cases would surpass 320,000 Wednesday but then take a downturn around March 23.

The government also predicted that the Omicron wave would peak within a week, but some experts disagreed and warned of the emergence of a new variant as vaccination effects wane.

The daily tally of deaths almost halved from 293 the previous day to 164 but could soar again since there are over 1,000 severe cases.