DOH reports 25% decline in daily COVID-19 cases

MANILA, Philippines — The prevalence of COVID-19 cases in the country is now on the downtrend, dropping by as much as 25 percent compared to previous weeks, the Department of Health (DOH) reported.

At a virtual briefing yesterday, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire noted that the national daily average of COVID cases in the past two weeks is now down to 1,887 new cases per day. Four weeks ago, DOH data showed an average of 2,517 new cases per day.

The coronavirus cases in the National Capital Region (NCR), epicenter of the pandemic, also showed a dramatic decline of 38 percent from the previous 842 new cases per day to only 522 over the past two weeks, she said.

But even with these lower figures, many communities may still not be placed under the more lenient modified general community quarantine (MGCQ) as Vergeire pointed out that the decline is not the only factor being considered when deciding on easing quarantine status level.

“We all know that we don’t just measure the number of cases when we say we are deciding on the quarantine level of an area. Aside from the number, we also look at the health system capacity of the area. This must not be overwhelmed and still able to accommodate even the non-COVID cases. Average growth rate downward, negative. That’s the time that we can be able to shift to lower quarantine level,” she explained.

Vergeire said the DOH is hoping that the quarantine status in all local government units nationwide will be lowered to MGCQ by the first quarter of 2021.

The DOH reported that the confirmed COVID cases nationwide reached 385,400 yesterday with the addition of 2,298. It also noted a high 90.5 percent or 348,830 of the total confirmed cases have recuperated, including yesterday’s 87 newly recorded recoveries.

There are 29,301 active cases, a majority of them mild and asymptomatic. With the addition of 32 fatalities, the number of COVID-related deaths nationwide rose to 7,269, representing 1.89 percent of total confirmed cases.

Meanwhile, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III appealed to LGUs to provide separate rooms for high-risk individuals like the sick, elderly, children and pregnant women in evacuation centers.

The South Korean embassy in Manila also reported yesterday that the Korean government will provide a $100-million loan for the Philippines’ COVID-19 emergency response.

The Korean government, through the Export-Import Bank of Korea/Korea Eximbank, and the Philippine government through the Department of Finance entered into an agreement last Thursday for the EDCF COVID-19 Emergency Response Program Loan, the third agreement to be signed by the two countries under the EDCF Framework Arrangement for the years 2017 through 2022.

This program loan will provide immediate financing/budgetary support for economic policies or implementation of sector development plans. It may also take the form of an emergency relief fund for a pandemic situation like COVID-19.

The embassy said this was the “first and largest COVID-19-related bilateral assistance offered by the Republic of Korea to a partner country so far.”

Through this program loan, which is a type of budgetary support for policy establishment and implementation of COVID-19 response strategies, the Korean government expressed its solidarity with the Philippines and the international community in the ongoing global battle against the coronavirus.

“It is also hoped that this will further strengthen relations between Korea and the Philippines in the field of public health and safety in addition to diverse areas of cooperation over the past 70 years,” the embassy said. – Pia Lee-Brago