Facade of the DOH main office in Manila. INQUIRER.net file photo
MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) is monitoring the cities of Lapu-Lapu in Cebu and General Santos in South Cotabato as both areas registered a small increase in new COVID-19 cases.
In a briefing on Tuesday, DOH epidemiology bureau officer-in-charge Director Alethea de Guzman said that while all key areas in the country are under Alert Level 2, they saw that the COVID-19 positivity rate for a week in Lapu-Lapu City went up by 10.53 percent and in General Santos City, by 79.17 percent.
“All of our areas remain under Alert Level 2, however, we’re closely monitoring two areas and these are Lapu-Lapu City and General Santos City, and the reason why we’re flagging these two areas is that aside from a positive one-week growth rate, they showed already, it’s already translated to a two-week growth rate,” de Guzman said.
“So para po sa Lapu-Lapu, 10.53 one week growth rate, at itong nakaraang dalawang linggo ay umakyat ng almost three percent […] at para sa General Santos naman, one-week growth rate increased by 79.17 percent and the two-week growth rate at just under two percent,” she added.
Despite the increases, the DOH official said these are small hikes in infections given the already low case numbers, which already resulted in a small change in the average daily attack rate (ADAR)
However, they would still watch if this trend continues in those areas in the coming weeks.
“These are very small increases ano, kaya naman ang kanyang daily attack rate ay hindi masyadong lumaki, in fact for Lapu-Lapu City, it remained at 0.63, and for General Santos City it only meant a small increase, from 0.72 to 0.73,” de Guzman explained.
“Tulad ng nabanggit ko, ito’y tuloy-tuloy natin na babantayan kung ito ay magiging continuous na increase, o ito ay bahagya at temporary increase lamang,” she noted.
Still, all metrics have pointed to a good performance in terms of responding to the pandemic, as infections and deaths due to COVID-19 were either going down or plateauing on lower levels, even as the Bicol Region and Soccsksargen have posted positive COVID-19 growth in the past week.
De Guzman said the growth of cases in these two regions would also be closely monitored.
“Tuloy-tuloy na meron tayong admissions subalit nakikita natin ang dami at porsyento ng mga severe at critical, ay either tuloy-tuloy na bumababa or halos pareho lang nitong mga nakaraang buwan,” she said.
“Lahat na rin ho ng ating region ay nasa minimal risk po, so even those like CAR and Region 2 and 9 na dating naka-low risk, nakababa na rin ang kanilang ADAR sa less than one, Meron lang tayong dalawang rehiyon na nakitaan natin ng bahagyang pagtaas noong nakaraang linggo, at ‘yon ang Region 12 as well as 5 at ito ay babantayan natin kung ito ay magtutuloy-tuloy,” she added.
Earlier, de Guzman also warned that the country may see an uptick in cases by end of January 2022 if compliance with minimum public health safety protocols decreases by 30 percent.
READ: DOH: 1 of 3 scenarios shows rise in COVID cases by January if protocols are ignored
According to de Guzman, most of the prediction models they generated pointed to active COVID-19 cases going down despite the holidays, where mobility is expected to increase steadily.