The Department of Health (DOH) disagreed with the statement of the group of experts that the National Capital Region (NCR) has allegedly reached the peak or highest number of newly recorded cases of COVID-19.
Although the transmission has slowed in the NCR, it cannot yet be said that the highest number of cases in the region may have peaked or reached, according to Health spokesperson Maria Rosario Vergeire.
“When you say it’s peaked na kasi there is this highest number of cases recorded, and then there’s this decline, but right now we cannot see this in our numbers,” said Vergeire.
Recently, the OCTA Research Group said that COVID-19 cases may have peaked in Metro Manila.
The number of cases from September 13 to 19 was 13 percent lower than the previous week.
“The [University of the Philippines] COVID Response Team and the Department of Health say we’re not yet at our peak. They project that we will hit 30,000 or even 40,000 in a day,” said Dr. Ted Herbosa, adviser of National Task Force Against COVID-19.
Based on DOH projections, the peak may be reached by the end of September or October.
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DOH disagrees that NCR has reached peak of COVID-19 cases
Also, since the alert level system has only just begun in Metro Manila, the DOH has yet to say what the next alert level will be, especially since the current pilot implementation still needs to be assessed.
The Palace, on the other hand, is convinced that the system being implemented in NCR today is good.
Meanwhile, also according to the DOH, the more contagious Delta variant is now the most prevalent in the Philippines, based on samples subjected to genome sequencing.
More than 3,000 samples from more than 4,000 samples that underwent genome sequencing were found to be positive for the Delta variant.
On Monday, the DOH recorded 18,937 additional COVID-19 cases for a total of 2,385,616, of which 176,850 were active cases or still ill.
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