The threat of the new Omicron variant notwithstanding, the Philippines has successfully flattened the curve of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) fresh daily cases that was triggered by the Delta variant during the third quarter.
A visual representation of this can be seen in this chart, which tallied COVID-19 figures between Oct. 1 and Nov. 30, 2021.
The data, sourced from the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF), was obtained by the Manila Bulletin Tuesday night, Nov. 30.
To "flatten the curve" has been the battle cry of local health authorities since the initial surge of cases last year during the start of the pandemic.
The situation appeared more dire in August and September this year when new daily cases of COVID-19 began to breach the 20,000-mark. This exponential surge was due to the entry of the Delta variant, which was said to be more tranmissible than the previous variants of the virus.
Fast forward to late November, and the Philippines has recorded fewer than 1,000 new cases of COVID-19 from Nov. 22 to Nov. 30. Tuesday's recorded cases of 425 was the fewest for a single day, for the entire year.
The flattening of the curve is more pronounced in terms of active cases in the country. From over 130,000 last Oct. 1, active cases of the deadly disease are now at 15,800. The latter figure is the lowest since June 2020.
Earlier this week Cabinet Secretary and Acting Presidential Spokesperson Karlo Nograles assured Filipinos that the national government was "acting with a sense of urgency" against the Omicron variant, of which little is known by health experts. Nograles also serves as IATF spokesperson.
Omicron has been described as the "most heavily mutated variant" of COVID-19.
Over 2.8 million COVID-19 cases have been tallied in the Philippines since the pandemic began last year. The total recorded deaths from the respiratory disease is 48,545, with the fatality rate at 1.71 percent.