IN THE first half of June 2021, new coronavirus infections nationwide plateaued at an average of 6,500 per day as cases in the National Capital Region (NCR) gradually declined while those in some areas in the Visayas and Mindanao increased sharply.
Dr. Alethea de Guzman, Department of Health (DOH) Epidemiology Bureau director, said they have flagged 20 areas in the Visayas and Mindanao as well as 16 areas in Luzon for having high risk to critical healthcare utilization rates (HCUR).
She noted that the DOH has already called on hospitals in the Visayas and Mindanao to activate surge capacity plans and increase the proportion of beds designated for coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) patients to 50 percent for public hospitals and 30 percent for private hospitals.
“Kailangan, habang hindi pa overwhelmed ang ilang areas natin sa Visayas and Mindanao, matuto na tayo from NCR Plus na ngayon pa lang, dapat ino-augment na natin ang aning health care capacities,” De Guzman said.
Nationwide, the DOH recorded 5,389 new infections in its case bulletin Tuesday, June 15, 2021, despite the failure of 16 laboratories to submit their testing output two days earlier to the Covid-19 Document Repository System.
The new infections brought the total case count to 1,327,431, after the DOH removed nine duplicates and two cases that were found to have actually tested negative.
These also brought the seven-day average to 6,682, higher than the 6,489 daily average a week ago.
The latest case bulletin also listed 118 additional mortalities, raising the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) death toll to 22,963. The case fatality rate remained at 1.73 percent.
There were 6,667 new recoveries, but the DOH also removed four duplicates and one case listed as recovery but was actually negative for the Covid-19 virus.
The DOH also reclassified a total of 369 recoveries into 65 deaths and 304 active cases.
As of June 15, total recoveries reached 1,246,405, or 93.9 percent of the total case count.
There remained 58,063 cases, constituting 4.4 percent of the total count.
The daily positivity rate on June 13 was high at 13.9 percent, or almost one in seven. Testing output was low at 30,472 as 16 laboratories failed to submit their data on June 13.
Trends
In a situationer report Tuesday, De Guzman said the current downtrend in the NCR Plus remains ‘fragile.” NCR Plus refers to the National Capital Region (Metro Manila) and the provinces of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal.
If there are any superspreader events, De Guzman said the cases could easily climb again.
“Trends can go either way depending on effective PDITR (prevent, detect, isolate, treat and reintegrate) strategy implementation and MPHS (minimum public health standards) protocol adherence,” she said.
In NCR alone, the daily average of new cases went down to 833 for the period June 7 to 13 from 997 for the period May 31 to June 6, De Guzman said.
She said this is the time to intensify the PDITR strategy and ensure compliance to health protocols to keep cases low.
Nationwide, cases in the last two weeks increased by 15 percent. The average daily attack rate also increased slightly.
Based on these two indicators, Cagayan, Caraga and Western Visayas were classified as high risk while NCR, Calabarzon and Zamboanga Peninsula were low risk. The rest were classified as moderate risk.
The HCUR in the three high risk regions as well as in Davao Region were also going up. As of June 14, they were considered to be moderate risk.
At a more granular level, De Guzman said they have listed 36 areas with high risk attack rates or case growth rate, and high risk to critical HCUR or intensive care unit (ICU) utilization rate.
Of the 36, 20 are from the Visayas and Mindanao regions.
Among the areas with high risk to critical HCUR or ICUR, six have been flagged. These are La Union, Tarlac, Rizal, Cavite, Benguet and Agusan del Sur.
On June 14, De Guzman said Calabarzon overtook NCR in terms of new cases while Western Visayas and Davao Region entered the top five at third and fifth, respectively. Central Luzon had the fourth highest number of new cases.
In terms of mortalities, De Guzman also said they have observed a continuous decline to 51 per day as of June 14 from 97 per day in May and the peak of 119 per day in April.
In the first two weeks of June, a total of 720 Covid-19 patients died.
“This is much less than the figures reported in May. But we want to push it down even more,” De Guzman said. (Marites Villamor-Ilano / SunStar Philippines)