1K below new COVID-19 cases daily, possible in March —OCTA
By Nidz Godino
“We’re hoping by March, it will return to three digits. As long as the number of cases continuously decline and there were no spikes or major upticks. By March we think the situation will be the same in the whole country”, OCTA fellow Dr. Guido David said at the Laging Handa briefing nineteen (19) daily cases in the country could further decrease to just three digits in March if the observed downward trend continues.
From 8.93 on Tuesday, David said NCR’s average daily attack rate, or incidence showing average number of new cases in a period per 100,000 people, is currently around 7.
The country’s COVID-19 cases is also decreasing with 3,574 new cases reported by the Department of Health (DOH).
“The daily attack rate measures levels of infections, is decreasing…good news not only for NCR, but for the whole country,” David said.
Moreover, David said OCTA Research is projecting healthcare utilization rate of NCR will decrease to a “low risk” of 30%.
Records of less than 1,000 COVID-19 daily cases were seen in December last year.
DOH logged 3,651 new COVID-19 infections, bringing country’s caseload to 3,623,176.
The country’s active case count is 96,326, of which 4,150 are asymptomatic, 87,385 are mild, 3,029 are moderate, 1,447 are severe, and 315 are critical.
DOH said of 3,651 reported cases, 3,474 or 95% occurred within recent 14 days from January 27 to February 9, 2022.
Among top regions with cases in recent two weeks were Region 6 with 523 or 15%, followed by the National Capital Region (NCR) with 484 or 14% and Region 4-A with 414 or 12%.
A total of 12,834 more patients recovered from respiratory disease, bringing total tally to 3,472,160.
The number of deaths climbed to 54,690 with 69 new fatalities.
Country’s COVID-19 positivity rate was at 16.5%, which is slightly higher than the 16.3% positivity rate on Tuesday.
Both are higher than World Health Organization’s requirement target of less than 5% positivity rate. It means that there is a high transmission rate of the virus. The total COVID-19 tests conducted were at 29,970.
Based on latest data, 40% of 3,900 intensive care unit (ICU) beds for COVID-19 patients nationwide are in use.
At least 32% of the 15,300 ward beds in the country were utilized, while 30% of the 4,200 ward beds in the NCR were in use.
DOH said all laboratories were operational since February 7, while there were three laboratories that failed to submit data to COVID-19 Document Repository System.
It reported 105 duplicates were removed from the total case count. Of these, 86 are recoveries.
At least 49 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.
Downward trends were observed in eight highly urbanized cities (HUCs) in Luzon amid COVID-19 pandemic.
In a tweet, David said these were Angeles City, Pampanga; Baguio City, Benguet; Dagupan City, Pangasinan; Lucena City, Quezon; Naga City, Olongapo City, Zambales; Puerto Princesa City, Palawan, and Santiago City, Isabela.
At present, David said Baguio City and Puerto Princesa are at high risk with an average daily attack rate of 31.28 per 100,000 population and 8.04 per 100,000 population, respectively.
Baguio has a reproduction number of 0.54 and a positivity rate of 28%, while Puerto Princesa has reproduction number of 1.37 and a positivity rate of 100%.
The reproduction number refers to the number of people infected by one case. A reproduction number below 1 indicates transmission of virus is slowing down.
Angeles, Dagupan, Lucena, Naga, Olongapo, and Santiago Cities remained at moderate risk for COVID-19.
David advised the public to observe minimum health standards.
The Philippines on Tuesday logged 3,574 new COVID-19 cases. This brought the nationwide tally to 3,619,633 and active cases to 105,550.
In a separate tweet, David said Bacolod, Cebu, Lapu-Lapu, Mandaue, Ormoc, and Tacloban Cities have improved to moderate risk.
An ADAR of 12.93 was recorded for Bacolod, 16.53 for Cebu 11.15 for Mandaue, 14.83 for Lapu-Lapu, 3.99 for Ormoc, and 5.93 for Tacloban.
Iloilo was downgraded to high risk with an ADAR of 36.43.
All HUCs have reproduction number of less than 1.
Philippines has remained at moderate risk classification for COVID-19.
In President Rodrigo Duterte’s weekly Talk to the People, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said average daily attack rate in the country has dropped to 11.35% cases per every 100,000 individuals in the recent two weeks from January 25, 2022 to February 07, 2022.
The National Capital Region, Caraga, Cordillera Administrative Region, Regions 6, 2, 7, 1, 4A, and 3 are also at moderate risk classification, while Regions 8, 5, 4B, and Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao are under low risk.
Regions 11, 9, 12, and 10 remained at high risk classification.
Data from DOH showed country’s bed utilization was at 37.29%, merch vent utilization was at 21.08%, and ICU utilization was at 40.9%.
Duque said of 9,536 total confirmed cases admissions as of February 6, 2022, a total of 1,030 or 11% are severe, 422 or 4% are critical, 1,124 or 12% are asymptomatic, and 3,082 or 32% are mild.
He said mild cases increased in early January but are now slowing down.
“Nagkakaroon po ulit tayo ng bahagyang pagtaas ng bilang ng mga pumapanaw bunsod ng COVID-19 at ito po mga 93% ay hindi bakunado,” Duque said.
He also said there is “low incidence” of severe disease among Omicron cases and the case fatality rate was lower by at least 12 times versus other variants.
Of 2,702 Omicron cases since mid-December, Duque said only six were severe and critical cases or 0.22%. Nine deaths were also recorded due to Omicron, which means the case fatality rate was at 0.33%.
“Whether ang Omicron variant is inherently milder virus, it is also possible that because of our higher vaccine trajectory is one of the reasons we’re getting much lower case fatality rate for Omicron and also severe and critical cases,” he concluded.
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