(UPDATED) New coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) cases nationwide slightly declined week-on-week, but the two-week growth rate remained in positive territory and the daily average was still around 20,000 as of Sunday, September 19, 2021.
Deaths from Covid-19 have also stayed above 200 a day for six consecutive days now.
In its case bulletin, the Department of Health (DOH) on Sunday reported 19,271 new cases, 205 additional deaths and 25,037 new recoveries.
The new cases brought the seven-day moving average for the period September 13 to 19 to 19,970, a 1.31 percent decline from the 20,239 daily average a week ago from September 6 to 12.
The two-week growth rate, however, was still 15.45 percent, with cases increasing to 281,468 in the last two weeks from September 6 to 19 compared to 243,801 in the previous two weeks from August 23 to September 5.
The Covid-19 case count in the Philippines increased to 2,366,749. There were 72 duplicates that were removed from the tally.
The positivity rate was lower, but remained elevated at 25.1 percent while testing output was slightly lower at 70,571 on September 17. Two laboratories were unable to submit their testing data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System.
The additional deaths, which included 94 cases reclassified from recoveries, raised the Covid-19 death toll to 36,788. The case fatality rate declined to 1.55 percent.
With recoveries higher than the new cases, the active Covid-19 cases nationwide went down to 178,196, of which 0.6 percent were critical, 1.4 percent were severe, 2.6 percent were moderate, 92.3 percent were mild and 3.1 percent were asymptomatic.
Total recoveries from infection increased to 2,151,765, or 90.9 percent of the confirmed Covid-19 cases in the country.
Dr. Guido David of independent research group Octa Research said in a social media post Sunday that the one-week growth rates in the past few days in the National Capital Region (NCR) have been negative, “strongly suggesting cases may have already peaked in the NCR.”
“When the growth rates are consistently negative, this is usually a sign that the peak in daily cases has been reached. Again, trends may still reverse, so we need to sustain our efforts so that these gains will not be lost,” David said.
The NCR, which has the second biggest population among the regions, has consistently topped the list in terms of highest number of new cases.
In the last two weeks to September 18, it posted 65,809 new cases. Total confirmed cases in the region went up to 758,474, about a third of 2.3 million cases in the country.
Other regions with the highest number of new cases in the last 14 days to September 18 were Calabarzon (49,520), Central Luzon (25,636), Western Visayas (12,007) and Cagayan Valley (10,979).
Among the cities and provinces, the highest new cases in the last 14 days were recorded in Cavite (16,987), Quezon City (13,075), Laguna (11,851), Bulacan (9,776) and Rizal (9,523).
Globally, novel coronavirus Sars-CoV-2 has infected more than 228.24 million and killed nearly 4.7 million people, according to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus tracker. (Marites Villamor-Ilano / SunStar Philippines)