The Metro Manila skyline at night (File photo by JILSON SECKLER TIU / Philippine Daily Inquirer)
MANILA, Philippines — The COVID-19 cases in the National Capital Region (NCR) Plus areas have started to plateau, with fewer infections smaller compared to the surge last March and April, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said on Monday during the weekly taped briefing with President Rodrigo Duterte.
This looked good for NCR Plus — which is composed of Metro Manila, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, Rizal — as the rest of Luzon saw a slight spike in cases in the past week, which however had also started to plateau, according to Duque.
The cases in the Visayas and Mindanao were also decreasing — but at a slow rate, he added.
Still, Duque said that indicators pointed to generally improving conditions as the average daily attack rate (ADAR) nationwide — or the rate of infection per 100,000 of the population — had decreased recently.
Even in areas of concern, the secretary suggested that that the statistical increases were not so alarming.
“We see that, on the whole, the national ADAR — or average daily attack rate per 100,000 population — continues to improve, along with our two-week growth rate [TWGR]. Also continuing to decrease is the ADAR of the NCR, although its TWGR increase slightly,” Duque said in Filipino.
“We continue to monitor Regions 11 and 6 [the Davao Region and Western Visayas] as their ADAR continues to rise. But we can see that the two-week growth rate of Region 11 has gone down and there was only a slight increase in Region 6. This means that we have prevented the continued increase of cases,” he added.
These developments came just weeks after the government and the Department of Health had constantly reminded local executives in the Visayas and Mindanao to implement stricter health measures in the face of the rising number of infections.
Last June, Duque explained that the high number of COVID-19 cases nationwide, despite decreases in NCR Plus, was due to infections spreading in other areas.
As of Monday, the nationwide count of active COVID-19 cases was at 49,128, after DOH tallied 5,204 new infections. This active case count represents 3.3 percent of the 1,478,061 total confirmed cases since the pandemic reached the Philippines.