PH now at ‘critical risk’ for COVID-19 transmission, says Duque

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines is now at “critical risk” for COVID-19 transmission, said Health Secretary Francisco Duque III on Monday during a taped briefing with President Rodrigo Duterte.

“Our country is currently in critical risk case classification with an increase of 690 percent in our 7-day average of daily reported cases,” Duque said in Filipino.

Apart from average daily cases, Duque also said that the country’s two-week growth rate is now 3,663 percent, the average daily attack rate (ADAR) is 10.47, and the positivity rate is 40.4 percent.

The ADAR refers to the percentage of an at-risk population that is infected with the virus during a specific time period.

This is significantly higher than on Jan. 3, when the Department of Health (DOH) first classified the country as “high risk” with a 222 percent growth rate when comparing cases recorded from Dec. 6 to 19, 2021 and Dec. 20, 2021, to Jan. 2, 2022.

READ: PH back at ‘high risk’ for COVID-19

Meanwhile, the country’s national bed utilization rate is at 40 percent, the ICU utilization rate is at 38 percent, and the mechanical ventilator utilization rate is at 17 percent.

“So all of these show that the utilization rate has increased,” Duque said.

Earlier, the DOH reported another all-time high of daily new cases at 33,169.

READ: PH records 33,169 new COVID-19 cases amid Omicron scare

Active infections nationwide currently number 157,526, and the confirmed total is 2,998,530.

ATM