Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said the daily COVID-19 cases in the National Capital Region (NCR) have peaked.
“Lumalabas nag-peak na at nakita natin ilang araw nang sunod-sunod na bumababa ang kaso ng NCR at lumiliit ang porsyenteng inaambag nito sa ating total case load,” Duque said during the Laging Handa briefing.
(It seems like it has peaked already as we’ve seen a continuous decline in COVID-19 cases in NCR as well as a decrease in its contributions to the total caseload.)
On Sunday, the Department of Health (DOH) reported 29,828 new cases, breaking the streak of over 30,000 daily cases in the previous three days.
For Duque, Metro Manila may be downgraded to Alert Level 2 once it meets the government’s criteria.
An area’s two-week growth rate must be at moderate risk, and the average daily attack rate must be at around one to seven cases per 100,000 population for it to be placed under Alert Level 2. In addition, the Healthcare utilization rate must be below 49%.
“Yan automatic, ‘yan, kapag maabot ‘yan, babaa tayo to Alert Level 2 [automatic, if we those criteria then we will go down to Alert Level 2),” he said.
NCR COVID-19 cases peaked – Duque
DOH data showed that 48% of the ICU beds in NCR are used, while 46% of the isolation beds are utilized.
However, Duque said the Inter-Agency Task Force still has to discuss this.
“Baka kailangan tignan pa rin kung ang healthcare utilization rate ay nagkaroon na ng pagbabaklas o decoupling. Kumbaga tumaas ng kaso, ito raw yung kwan natin, ‘yung mga severe, critical, nasa baba,” he said.
(We may need to look at the healthcare utilization rate if it had decoupling. However, even if cases went up, the severe, critical is low.)
Meanwhile, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the BA.2 or the Stealth Omicron (discovered a week after the detection of Omicron) was not yet detected in the Philippines.
“Hanggang sa ngayon naman po wala po tayong nade-detect na ganitong BA.2 sa ating bansa (as of now, we still have not detected the BA.2 in our country),” Vergeire said in an interview on CNN.
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