Covid cases up by 82 percent

By Franco Jose C. Baroña, Manila Times

THE Department of Health (DoH) on Monday reported an 82-percent increase in Covid-19 cases in the country.

In its weekly case bulletin, the DoH said 3,051 cases were recorded from June 13 to June 19, or a daily average of 436. This is 82 percent higher than the cases reported from June 6 to June 12.

Health Undersecretary and spokesman Rosario Vergeire said the National Capital Region or Metro Manila is particularly experiencing "a start in the peak in the number of cases" similar to the spikes in September 2021 and January 2022 driven by the Delta and Omicron variants.

Vergeire made it clear that the current trend cannot be referred to as a "surge" and doing so will only confuse the public.

She attributed the increase of cases to the Omicron subvariants, increased mobility and the waning immunity of the population due to the slow administration of booster vaccines.

Out of 55 million Filipinos eligible for booster shots, only 14 million have received booster doses.

"So we are looking at around 14 million individuals who have not received their boosters, and we know that immunity is waning so we need to have this demand for our countrymen," Vergeire said.

She said while Metro Manila tallied a positive two-week growth rate, it is still classified as low risk for Covid-19.

"We are guiding our public, making them aware that this might be the start that the cases will continuously rise in the next couple of weeks," Vergeire said.

The Health department has also detected a slight rise in cases in Western Visayas, Northern Mindanao, Ilocos Region, Cagayan Valley, Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon) and Mimaropa (Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan).

Dr. Edsel Salvaña, a member of the DoH technical advisory group, said that despite the steady increase in infections, Metro Manila is still far from being classified as moderate risk for Covid-19.

Salvaña said the region's average daily attack rate (ADAR) is still "a little bit above" 1 out of 100,000 cases, and the ADAR must be at least 6 out of 100,000 to qualify for a moderate risk classification.

He added that the hospital utilization rate of Metro Manila is still in the "low 20s," far from the 50-percent level for moderate risk.

"We're far from the parameters used by DoH in terms of moving from low risk to moderate risk," Salvaña said in a public briefing.

Based on World Health Organization ratings, Metro Manila should have at least 800 infections daily in the next two weeks before it can be classified as moderate risk, he said.

PH logs 2,196 new Covid-19 cases

The uptick in cases is expected because of the new Omicron lineages that have infiltrated the country, "but it all remains manageable" and "health care utilization is still low," Salvaña said.