The Department of Health (DOH) warns that active COVID-19 cases in the country may shoot up again in December if Filipinos will let their guard down and become complacent in observing health protocols, now that Metro Manila is under the more relaxed alert level 2.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire, citing projections by the DOH’s disease surveillance team, said active cases might reach 52,393 next month if safety measures against COVID-19 were ignored and pandemic response, specifically the detection and isolation of cases, would slow down.
The DOH team is called the Feasibility Analysis of Syndromic Surveillance Using Spatio-Temporal Epidemiological Modeler For Early Detection of Diseases (FASSSTER).
The country’s active case count started to fall below the 50,000-mark on Oct. 30 and has since been on a downward trend. Active cases yesterday stood at 34,866.
Director Alethea de Guzman of the DOH’s epidemiology bureau earlier said the “assumptions used to create scenarios” in COVID-19 case projections were mobility, adherence to minimum public health standards, health system capacity and vaccination coverage.
New COVID-19 daily infections hit 2,656 on Saturday, the highest in the last five days. This raised the total number of cases to 2,800,621.
Of the active cases, 67 percent had mild symptoms; 14.9 percent, moderate; 8.7 percent, severe; 5.6 percent, asymptomatic; and 3.7 percent, critical.
There were 5,130 patients who recovered, bringing the total number of recoveries to 2,721,516.
The country’s death toll stood at 44,239 after 154 new fatalities were registered.
Vergeire, however, clarified during the briefing that the daily death count did not reflect the actual number of fatalities recorded per day because data from the local governments had to be validated first before they could be included in the case bulletin.
She said that the country was now averaging 10 deaths a day compared to 193 deaths a day in September. The positivity rate dipped to 5.6 percent, now closer to the below 5 percent recommended by the World Health Organization. In the meantime, the Philippine National Police logged 9,451 violations of pandemic protocols on Friday, the first day of implementation of alert level 2 in Metro Manila.
The number, according to PNP chief Gen. Guillermo Eleazar, was slightly lower than the daily average violations of 9,746 in the 20 days when Metro Manila was under the stricter alert level 3.
Of the breaches logged on Friday, 10 percent were curfew violations, lower than the 24 percent recorded under alert level 3.
Curfew was lifted in Metro Manila starting Nov. 4 but some local governments continued to impose it only on minors, with their city or municipal ordinances as legal basis.
Eleazar did not specify the other violations committed but the usual offenses recorded by the PNP in the past included non-wearing of face masks and failure to observe physical distancing. Under alert level 2, there is also no age-based mobility restrictions in Metro Manila.
At the Laging Handa briefing, Eleazar said the PNP would intensify its monitoring of the public’s compliance with health protocols under more relaxed restrictions.
Eleazar said he had directed chiefs of police to identify areas where people tend to converge so they could plan accordingly. (© Philippine Daily Inquirer News)
