MANILA. Vendors sell food and water to waiting residents at a vaccination center in Quezon City in this file photo taken in September 2021. (File)
MANILA. Vendors sell food and water to waiting residents at a vaccination center in Quezon City in this file photo taken in September 2021. (File)

DOH warns against complacency as case downtrend continues

NEW cases of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) are declining, but this is not the time to be complacent, Department of Health (DOH) Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire stressed Monday, October 11, 2021.

In her regular press conference Monday, Vergeire said three regions — Cordillera, Cagayan Valley and Zamboanga Peninsula — remained at high risk.

Vergeire said local government units (LGUs) should continue to keep the detection-to-isolation time short, or even further shorten this through active case finding and granular lockdowns.

“While we see improvement in our case trends, this is not the time to be complacent. We should maximize our gains and continue aggressively implementing our local responses,” Vergeire said.

She warned that failure to sustain or improve response at the local level will lead to an increase in cases again.

“Continue adhering to the minimum public health standards, and avoid the 3Cs: closed spaces, crowded areas, and close contact settings,” she added.

In its case bulletin Monday, the DOH reported 8,292 new Covid cases, the lowest since the 8,127 recorded on August 5 over two months ago.

These brought the cumulative case count to 2,674,814, after the removal of 40 duplicates.

Fewer tests were conducted on Saturday, October 9, reaching only 52,352, but the daily positivity rate increased again to 16.5 percent after declining to 15.9 percent on October 8. Two laboratories were unable to submit their data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System.

There were 36 additional deaths, including 21 cases that were previously classified as recoveries. These raised the Covid-19 death toll in the Philippines to 39,660. The case fatality rate declined to 1.48 percent.

There were only 302 new recoveries, bringing the total to 2,536,260.

As the new cases were much higher than recoveries, the number of active cases increased but remained below 100,000.

The DOH listed 98,894 active cases, of which 1.3 percent were critical, 3.2 percent were severe, 6.14 percent were moderate, 74.4 percent were mild and 15 percent were asymptomatic.

Covid cases nationwide peaked at 20,946 per day in early September, from September 6 to 12.

This new peak was double the 10,431 per day peak early this year from March 29 to April 4, and five times the estimated daily average of 4,000 in August 2020.

Cases have since declined, averaging 19,935 per day on September 13 to 21, 17,758 on September 20 to 26, and 14,689 on September 27 to October 3.

In the last seven days from October 4 to 10, daily cases averaged 10,494, the DOH reported. (Marites Villamor-Ilano / SunStar Philippines)

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