THE Department of Health (DOH) yesterday said the country’s risk classification is back to “moderate” as coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases have again started climbing since mid-July.
In a virtual press briefing, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the average daily cases nationwide from July 22 to July 28 is now at 6,029, which is higher by 453 cases compared to the previous week of July 15 to July 21, where there was a 5,576 average cases per day.
“Nationally, our two-week growth rate is now again positive at 1 percent versus last week’s negative 10 percent,” Vergeire said.
She added that the average daily attack rate nationwide also went up to 4.95 from 4.88 per 100,000 population in the last two weeks.
“We saw a decline since our peak in cases in the first week of April. Since May, however, this decline has slowed down and we are now seeing an increase in cases this mid-July,” said Vergeire.
Vergeire said six regions have shown increasing trends. These are Central Visayas (44%), Cagayan Valley (23%), National Capital Region (19%), Northern Mindanao (18%), Calabarzon (1%), and Central Luzon (23%).
In Metro Manila, the DOH said that an increase has been noted in the recent week with an additional 231 cases compared to the previous week.
All “Plus” areas, namely Bulacan, Rizal, Laguna, and Cavite, are also showing a slow increase in cases, according to Vergeire.
She also noted how, for the rest of Luzon, upward trends were observed in Ilocos Region (Region 1), Cagayan Valley (Region 2), and Central Luzon (Region 3).
In the Visayas, steep rise in cases is observed in Central Visayas (Region VII).
The DOH also said there is an upward trend observed in Northern Mindanao (Region X).
Despite the upward trends being observed, including in the capital region, the DOH continued to deny that a “surge” is already present in Metro Manila.
In fact, Vergeire said they actually refuse to use the term “surge” when referring to increasing cases.
“Surge is not a recognized term in epidemiology. As much as possible, we don’t want to use that,” said Vergeire.
She said this is because the term surge will only result to unwanted panic among the public.
“We don’t want to term this as a surge. At DOH, we don’t like to alarm people. We don’t want to be an alarmist. We don’t want people to panic,” she explained, even as she said that “we aren’t hiding the fact that cases are increasing in the NCR and other parts of the Philippines.”
The independent OCTA Research Team has said that the NCR is already seeing the early stages of a surge in COVID-19 cases following an increase in COVID-19 cases and the detection of more Delta cases in the region.
