WITH their increase in cases seen nationally at 15 percent growth and a slight increase in average daily attack rate (ADAR), an official of the Department of Health (DOH) on Tuesday reported that Regions 2, 6, and Caraga, are currently at high-risk classification due to the increase in cases and high ADAR.
Dr. Alethea De Guzman, Epidemiology Bureau Director of the DOH, said that the cities of Parañaque and Pasay have also been classified as high-risk areas. Likewise, Parañaque (2 percent), Pasay (19 percent), and Malabon (30 percent) have shown a positive case growth rate during May 30 to June 12.
In Region 2, the ADAR in the previous 3-4 weeks (May 19-29,2021), increased from 8.79 percent to 10.36 percent in the recent 1-2 weeks (May 30-June 12); Caraga, 6.36 percent to 9.27 percent; and 4.99 to 8.11 in Region 6.
De Guzman said the healthcare utilization rate (HCUR) for Intensive Care Unit (ICU) utilization in Region 2 (73 percent) and Caraga (63 percent) is in moderate status while it is deemed high risk in Region 6 at 84 percent.
“As cases continue to increase in Visayas and Mindanao, health care capacity, especially critical care capacity, must be augmented now,” the DOH official urged.
There were also six areas flagged by DOH after recording high to critical HCUR or ICU utilization—the provinces of La Union, Tarlac, Rizal, Cavite, Benguet and Agusan del Sur.
“Nationally, [the] decline in cases has stalled and a plateauing trend continues.
NCR [is] in a slow decline after a minor bump in trend; [NCR] Plus areas with less consistent case pattern; Other Luzon areas and Mindanao cases have not gone down after an uptick in cases; Visayas now has the steepest increase in cases among the island groups, surpassing numbers of NCR Plus Areas,” De Guzman said.
While there is a current downward trend in NCR, De Guzman warned that it remains “fragile,” and that super spreader events should not be allowed.
“As evidenced by the minor uptick in cases the past month and in some areas after a slow decline, trends can go either way depending on effective Prevention, Detection, Isolation, Treatment, and Reintegration or the PDITR Strategy and minimum public health standards protocol adherence,” she concluded.
Covid cases
The DOH on Tuesday logged 5,389 additional Covid-19 cases, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 1,327,431.
There were also 6,667 recoveries, and 118 deaths.
Of the total number of cases, 4.4 percent (58,063) are active, 93.9 percent (1,246,405) have recovered, and 1.73 percent (22,963) have died.
Nine duplicates were removed from the total case count. Of these, 4 are recoveries.
In addition, 2 cases were found to have tested negative and have been removed from the total case count. Of these, 1 is a recovery.
Moreover, 304 cases previously reported to be recoveries have been validated to be active cases and 65 cases previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.
All laboratories were operational on June 13, 2021, but 16 were not able to submit their data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System.
Based on data in the last 14 days, the 16 non-reporting labs contribute, on average, 5.5 percent of samples tested and 7.1 percent of positive individuals.