THE Department of Health yesterday affirmed that cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the country and hospital admissions due to the pandemic are in a downward trend, as it warned the public against being complacent and disregarding minimum health protocols.
Health Undersecretary and spokeswoman Maria Rosario Vergeire said an assessment of the COVID-19 situation nationwide showed that the numbers have gone down and hospital admittance has slowed down.
“We got all the factors, we identified all the factors and we tried to analyze if the decline in cases is confirmed and not affected by any other factor and we have confirmed that this is really a decline in cases. We saw that the cases are going down and we note that the admission in hospitals continue to go down,” Vergeire said in a virtual briefing.
She said the conclusion is based on lower laboratory outputs, declining positivity rate, and lesser hospital admissions due to COVID-19.
Vergeire, however, said that amid this development, the public should remain vigilant and not be complacent especially in following minimum health protocols.
She added that while there is a drop in the number of hospital admissions, the occupancy rate of COVID-19 beds remains high especially for intensive care unit (ICU) beds, which is still at 68 percent. She also said that some of those previously admitted in hospitals have yet to be discharged.
“We still need to be careful and continue to decongest hospitals so that we will be able to move on and open up some sectors in our economy,” she added.
The DOH yesterday logged 10,019 new cases of COVID-19 bringing the total cases to 2.63 million. This is slightly higher than the 9,868 COVID-19 cases recorded on Wednesday.
As this developed, presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the Inter-agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) will discuss developments in the National Capital Region and determine whether to retain or lower the current Alert Level 4 imposed in the region, which is effective until October 15.
Roque said also included in the IATF agenda yesterday was the opening of certain establishments such as cinemas especially if the Alert level 3 is implemented and proposed new arrival protocols for those arriving in the country.
