AN official of the Department of Health (DOH) on Monday disclosed that rise in the number of Covid-19 cases have been observed in “half” of the provinces and cities across the Philippines.
Likewise, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said they already flagged the increasing number of deaths related to Covid-19 “based on our analysis” but stressed that the country’s case fatality rate remains below 2 percent.
“Dumadami po yung severe and critical cases… [Severe and critical cases are also rising],” she added. She said that in national level, the health-care utilization rate is at 50 percent but noted an increase in some areas.
Asked for the list of these areas, the DOH, however, did not provide it to the media because Health Secretary Francisco T. Duque III had yet to present it to President Duterte during the public address on Monday night.
Vergeire stressed that there is already an “assumption” that Delta variant may be causing the rise in cases but reports that they gathered also showed that the non-compliance with minimum public health standards is one of the reasons behind this situation.
“The assumption is there but we can’t declare because there is not enough evidence yet . . . . We need sufficient evidence for us to declare that there is already a community transmission, because there are international implications to this, we also have international definitions that we aligned to,” Vergeire explained.
Vergeire also urged the local government units “not to give Delta variant a chance to spread” in the communities.
“Mag bahay-bahay na po tayo [Please do the house-to-house]…this way we can identify and isolate [the infected person]. Isolate first then test. Don’t delay the testing,” Vergeire stressed.
Of the 216 Delta variant cases that were detected, 17 are active cases, 15 are local cases and two are returning overseas Filipinos. Nine have died.
Covid cases
On Monday the DOH logged 8,167 additional Covid-19 cases—the fourth straight day it recorded over 8,000 fresh cases—bringing the total number of infections in the country to 1,605,762.
There were also 9,095 recoveries and 77 deaths.
Of the total number of cases, 3.9 percent (62,615) are active, 94.4 percent (1,515,054) have recovered, and 1.75 percent (28,093) have died.
Ninety-four duplicates were removed from the total case count. Of these, 20 are recoveries.
Moreover, 19 cases previously tagged as recoveries have been validated to be active cases and 29 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.
One laboratory was not operational on July 31, 2021 but three were not able to submit their data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System.
Based on data in the last 14 days, the three non-reporting and one non-operating laboratories contribute, on average, 1.5 percent of samples tested and 1.0 percent of positive individuals.