DOH: Too early to say if trend of COVID-19 cases in PH going down

MANILA, Philippines — It is too early to tell if COVID-19 cases in the country are on a downtrend, the Department of Health said Monday, as it appealed for more time to determine if the situation is really easing.

Health Secretary Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire noted during a virtual press briefing that the government has just expanded the country’s capacity for COVID-19 tests.

“Hindi pa natin masasabi kung bumababa na ang curve o ang bilang ng mga kaso ng COVID-19 sa ating bansa,” she said. “Maaga pa upang makapagsabi tayo kung bumababa na o patuloy na tumataas ang bilang ng kaso… Kailangan pa natin ng mas masusing pag-aaral.”

(We cannot say yet if the curve has already gone down or the number of cases has gone down in the country. It is too early to tell if the cases are decreasing or continuously increasing. We need to study it more.)

Secretary Carlito Galvez, the chief implementer of the National Action Policy against COVID-19, earlier pronounced that the number of new cases recorded in the country has decreased from its record-high 538 on March 31 even pointing out that increases in the succeeding days have not surpassed that mark.

“If you will see the data, the increase of the new cases has been 322; which is lower than the highest cases that we have, the last few days ago of 538. This is a good sign that we are gaining the battle despite the many tests now that we have right now,” Galvez said in a virtual press briefing on April 2.

On Monday, DOH recorded 414 more persons with COVID-19 in the country, propelling the total count to 3,660, including 163 fatalities and 73 recoveries.

Recoveries

When asked during the briefing why the rate of recovered persons is low, Vergeire reasoned that as the government only recently boosted its testing capacity, there could be cases that were not documented as patients were asymptomatic or might have experienced only mild symptoms.

She added that the healing period from COVID-19 takes weeks: two weeks for mild cases and three to six weeks for severe cases.

KGA