DOH: Trend of COVID-19 cases not yet reversed

MANILA, Philippines — The trend of COVID-19 cases in the country has not yet been completely reversed despite the decrease in coronavirus infections, the Department of Health (DOH) said Friday, contrary to the earlier statement of OCTA Research.

While cases are going down, there are still some areas with a high number of COVID-19 infections, said Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire.

“We were able to contain itong pagtaas ng kaso. Napababa natin ngayon sa level na manageable na para sa ating lahat. Nakita rin natin na hindi na-overwhelm ang ating healthcare capacity,” she told an online media forum.

(We were able to contain this increase in cases. We were able to decrease it to a manageable level. We also saw that our healthcare capacity was not overwhelmed.)

“Pero hindi tayo kailangang maging kampante. We cannot really say that we have already reversed because there are still cases ongoing, there are still areas na mataas ang kaso, mayroon pa ring pagkapuno ng mga hospital kaya kailangan lahat tayo ay maging maingat muna,” she added.

(But we should not be complacent. We cannot really say we have already reversed the trend because there are still areas with high numbers of cases and some hospitals are still full. That’s why we should all still be careful.)

In a media forum on Thursday, OCTA Research fellow Guido David said that the number of new COVID-19 cases in Metro Manila and most of the country is now back to the pre-Delta variant surge level. However, he also said that a few areas are still recording a high number of active COVID-19 infections but the trend of their cases is decreasing.

“We are averaging about 600 cases per day, so essentially we have reversed the Delta surge already in the NCR (National Capital Region). We are back to where we were before the surge in July,” David said.

“For the entire country, we are actually back in… it’s like we reversed back to March of this year in terms of the cases, but for NCR, we reversed it back to around June or July,” he added.

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