The Department of Health (DOH) retracted its report on Monday afternoon of four Metro Manila cities tagged to be emerging COVID-19 hotspots.
DOH in a statement sent to health reporters late Monday night said:
We would like to rectify the report on emerging hotspots in Metro Manila.
The following cities were mistakenly classified as hotspots and was based on a report last month. We are thankful to report that, as of July 5, the mentioned cities show a significant decline in case growth, as follows:
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- Marikina: decreased by 68%
- Muntinlupa: decreased by 10%
- Makati: decreased by 4%
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We are closely monitoring Quezon City which has shown an increase by 34%. We apologize for the confusion. This is our up to date record. We will redouble our efforts to keep our reports as current as possible.
DOH’s first report on emerging COVID-19 hotspots
DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, in a televised briefing Monday afternoon, said the capital showed a “notable” increase in cases in the past two weeks. She then identified the following cities as emerging hotspots:
- Marikina City: 51 cases – 43.47% growth rate
- Muntinlupa City: 30 cases – 35.16% growth rate
- Quezon City: 406 cases – 34.5% growth rate
- Makati City: 135 cases – 30.18% growth rate
The data, however, turned out to be from June.
Also read: DOH strictly monitoring 6 COVID-19 hotspots in NCR, Cebu
Spike in cases “still manageable”
In the same press briefing, Vergeire, the surge of new cases in recent weeks is still manageable, as the country’s case doubling time (CDT) is still 7.95 days.
“The case doubling time in our country now is still longer than a week, and entails that the national situation is still manageable,” Vergeire said in a mix of English and Filipino.
She added that the government is closely monitoring Metro Manila and Cebu province because of the clustering of cases.
“Sa Cebu may nakita po tayong 64 barangays with clustering of cases. Samantalang, sa National Capital Region naman po may nakita po tayo na 314 barangays with clustering of cases,” Vergeire said.
(In Cebu province, we saw 64 barangays with clustering of cases while we saw 314 barangays in the National Capital Region.)
As of July 6, the Philippines recorded 46,333 cases of COVID-19 infections, including 1,303 deaths and 12,185 recoveries