MANILA, Philippines — The number of daily confirmed COVID-19 cases has dropped to its lowest since the pandemic was declared in March 2020.
The Department of Health (DOH) reported that only 36 new coronavirus cases were detected by testing laboratories nationwide on Sunday.
This was the lowest daily tally of confirmed cases since March 20, 2020, a few days after the country went into total lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
From Jan. 30 to Feb. 5, the daily average number of people who tested positive for the virus dropped to 145 from the 172 recorded the week before that. Of the 1,012 new cases confirmed by laboratory tests last week, no one was in severe or critical condition, according to the DOH.
Half of cases in Metro
The DOH also confirmed 85 more deaths due to COVID-19, bringing the country’s official death toll to 65,851 out of around 4 million confirmed cases. Dr. Guido David of the monitoring group OCTA Research said that of the 36 new cases reported on Feb. 5, about half, or 17 were in Metro Manila.
As a result, according to David, the seven-day average new cases in the capital region dropped to 46 cases per day, the lowest since March 2020. Testing through reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) has gone down to 35 tests per day per 100,000 population in Metro Manila as of Feb. 4, he added.
According to infectious disease expert Dr. Benjamin Co, the average weekly cases of COVID-19 in the country was lower than the weekly average seen in March 2020.
“While many may not be testing with [RT-PCR] now, we only had a handful of [RT-PCR] testing in March 2020,” Co said on Twitter, where he had been sharing his analysis of local and worldwide case count throughout the pandemic.
True number unknown
Co stopped counting COVID-19 cases at the start of the year, pointing out that many countries, especially in the European Union, were no longer doing so.
“The virus co-exists and will remain to co-exist with us as the true number of daily cases is now a blur. Even those who pass away from COVID-related illness is now becoming a challenge with countries not truly reporting COVID-19 as the direct cause of death in many patients,” he wrote in his blog on Jan. 1.
Currently, there are 388 admitted COVID-19 patients who are severely or critically ill out of 9,378 active cases or people who are still infected with the virus.
The healthcare utilization rate remains at low risk as less than 40 percent or 3,737 active cases are admitted to hospitals.