DOH closely watching 6 emerging COVID-19 hot spots

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Health (DOH) on Wednesday said it was closely watching six emerging coronavirus hot spots in the country to ensure that the local health systems there would not be overwhelmed.

The emerging hot spots are Cebu City, Ormoc City, and the provinces of Cebu, Southern Leyte, Leyte and Samar, which had accounted for a combined 5,305 cases as of Tuesday.

“There are not that many cases yet in these areas but we are seeing that their rate of increase is faster compared to other areas,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in an online press briefing on Wednesday.

Suppressing viral spread

“This is why the national government provided assistance to immediately suppress the spread of the virus. We sent in equipment to ramp up the testing capacity of Cebu province and required the strict implementation of the public health standards with the help of the local governments in these emerging hot spots,” she added. (See related story in Regions, Page A8.)

On Wednesday, the DOH recorded 470 additional cases, bringing the nationwide total to 32,295. Of these cases, 357 were patients who tested positive for the new coronavirus in the last three days. Metro Manila had the most number of these cases, 159, followed by Central Visayas, which had 141.

The remainder of the additional infections, 113, were late cases or patients who tested positive for the virus four days ago or earlier. Metro Manila also topped this list with 66 of the cases.

The DOH reported that 214 more patients had recovered, pushing to 8,656 the total number of survivors of COVID-19, the severe respiratory illness caused by the new coronavirus.

The death toll, however, increased to 1,204, as 18 more patients died. Of the newly reported deaths, 14 died between June 4 and 17.

Vergeire said a continued increase in the number of new cases was expected with the reopening of the economy, the loosening of quarantine restrictions, and the increasing capacity to test for the coronavirus.

Even with the rise in the national caseload, she noted that the daily number of cases have already “stabilized” and that the increase remained to be “gradual.”

“This means that our current health system is able to cope with the rise in the number of cases,” she said.

Also, Vergeire noted a huge chance of recovery for patients since barely 1 percent were severely ill or in critical condition. Of the 22,197 active cases on Tuesday, 102 were severely ill while 23 were intubated. The bulk of the cases, 21,362, exhibited mild symptoms, while 710 were asymptomatic.

Deaths declining

Vergeire said it was also clear the management of COVID-19 cases had improved, as the number of reported deaths continued to decline.

“This is an encouraging sign for us. Even as cases increase in various parts of the country, our health system is able to manage and only a few die from COVID-19,” she said.

Currently, the Philippines’ case fatality rate is 3.73 percent, slightly above Southeast Asia’s 2.94 percent but below the global average of 5.22 percent.