COVID-19 cases declining across the country – DOH

MANILA, Philippines — COVID-19 cases in the country, including in the National Capital Region (NCR), are on a decline, the Department of Health (DOH) reported yesterday.

“Daily decline is being sustained, both in the national and in the NCR. Broken down into island groups, only Mindanao is still seeing increasing numbers while Visayas is on a plateau. The rest of the country shows downward trend,” DOH officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said at a press conference.

Similarly, she said the number of severe and critical cases is on a plateau, compared to the slow surge seen in the previous week.

“Though it was increasing for the past days, it’s plateauing right now. We can see that it does not go beyond our threshold of 1,000. It’s always less than 1,000 and if we look at the status of hospital admissions, we can see that it is less than 10 percent of admitted cases,” Vergeire explained.

As to variants, the DOH reported the detection of over 100 additional Omicron subvariant cases in the country. These include additional 139 BA.5 cases, six BA.4 cases and one BA.2.12.1 case detected during the latest genome sequencing.

The new BA.5 cases were detected in all regions except in Caraga.

As for the BA.4 cases, the DOH said these were detected in the Bicol region (3), Soccsksargen (2) and Davao (1).

Meanwhile, the lone additional BA.2.12.1 case was found in Ilocos region.

Daily COVID-19 cases in the country may climb to 9,000 by the end of September, according to the DOH.

Vergeire said their updated projection showed that cases may increase from the current 3,000 plus daily cases being reported.

“Right now nationally, our daily average is 3,231. This is 14 percent lower than the previous week. Our average daily case during the previous week is 3,755. Based on our projection, which was already updated because of the opening of classes, it may go up to 9,000 daily cases by end of September until October,” Vergeire added.

She said this is because of the higher mobility seen currently with the opening of classes earlier this week.

“With the opening of face-to-face classes and at the same time, parents bringing their children to school, there was an increase in mobility pattern. If we look at the cycle of disease transmission, there are many factors that could affect our cases,” Vergeire said.

The health official likewise said the probability is there.

“The projection may be met if the public continues to become more mobile and there is less adherence to minimum public health standards, and there is low vaccination and booster coverage. This could happen but it still depends if these assumptions will be realized,” she added.