That’s 240 average infections daily, alert level 2 in NCR a ‘possibility’
The Philippines tallied about 30 percent more COVID-19 cases in the last seven days compared to the previous week, the Department of Health (DOH) said Monday.
From June 6 to 12, the country recorded 1,682 new COVID-19 cases, or an average of 240 per day, the DOH said. This is 30.4 percent higher than cases from May 30 to June 5, it added.
Of the additional infections, eight were severe and critical.
The DOH on Saturday said Metro Manila posted a 1.6-percent rise in its positivity rate but said the uptick was not alarming.
Still, the DOH said raising Metro Manila to Alert Level 2 was a possibility if the uptick leads to a rise in hospital admissions.
“The possibility would always be there if the cases increase, but our countrymen must understand that we are learning to live with the virus. The virus won’t go away, it will stay with us so these mild and asymptomatic cases, it should be acceptable to the population,” said Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire.
“What’s important is that we don’t see a significant spike in severe and critical cases, and we have no problems at the hospital,” Vergeire added.
“If cases increase, and of course, we see more severe and critical cases, therefore when that happens, we might shift and escalate to Alert Level 2,” she said.
Metro Manila has been placed under Alert Level 1 since March after a decrease in fresh COVID cases recorded daily.
The DOH had earlier announced the detection of the highly transmissible omicron BA.4 subvariant from a Filipino who traveled from the Middle East earlier in May.
A total of 498 or 11.3 percent of COVID-19 patients in hospitals were in severe and critical condition, as of June 12. The figure is lower than the previous week’s 599 severe and critical patients who comprised 12.3 percent of COVID19 hospital admissions at the time.
A total of 345 or 16.6 percent of 2,078 intensive care unit (ICU) beds for COVID-19 patients were occupied as of Sunday, according to the DOH’s latest bulletin.
A total of 308 new cases of COVID-19 were reported on Sunday, the highest since April 20.
The number of active COVID cases in the country stood at 2,918. Of the fresh infections, 153 are from Metro Manila.
During the past week, the DOH said it verified five more COVID-related fatalities, citing late encoding of death information. Two of the deaths occurred this month while the remaining three “have no dates of death,” the DOH added.
Some 69 million people have been fully vaccinated against the respiratory disease, of whom 14.5 million have received their booster shots.
