Covid-19 cases rising outside Metro Manila, says DOH

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) has noted an increase in the number of Covid-19 cases in areas outside Metro Manila, among them Cebu City, and the regions of Cagayan Valley and Cordillera Administrative Region.

“Actually tumataas talaga ang number ng cases. Noong tiningnan namin ang analysis namin, dito sa mga tumataas na cases natin ngayon compared to December, nakita natin wala siya sa NCR (National Capital Region), nasa labas sya ng NCR,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in an online media forum on Monday.

“Isa nga dyan ang Cebu na nakikitaan natin ng pagtaas ng kaso in specific areas. Aside from Cebu, meron pang iba. Meron tayong CAR, Region 2 at marami pang ibang regions na nakakapagtala ngayon ng medyo pagtaas ng kaso at minomonitor natin,” she added.

(One of these areas is Cebu wherein we saw an increase of cases in specific areas. There are other areas aside from Cebu where the increase was observed. This includes CAR, Region 2, and many other regions.)

According to Vergeire, the average number of new Covid-19 cases recorded in the country in the past week was at 1,500, higher than the 1,000 to 1,300 range in December last year.

She said the DOH is monitoring if this increase will continue in the coming days to identify if the post-holiday surge of Covid-19 cases has already started.

However, Vergeire noted that there could also be factors that contributed to the increase of Covid-19 cases recorded in the previous week.

“Hindi tataas ang kaso kung nagkocomply ang mga tao sa (The number of cases will not increase if we saw that the people complied with) protocols, and why are we expecting this surge kahit noong dati pa (even before), is because we have seen that people were somehow lax in compliance to minimum public health standards during the holiday activities,” she explained.

She added that laboratory outputs have previously decreased since some laboratories were closed for the holiday season. Some people also did not go to health facilities to seek consultation or have themselves tested for Covid-19 during the period.

As of Monday, the country has already recorded a total of 500,577 Covid-19 cases, consisting of 24,691 active cases, 465,991 recoveries, and 9,895 deaths.

EDV