The Department of Health (DOH) recorded 263 new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases on Monday, Dec. 20.
Monday's update brought the country's total tally of COVID-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic to 2,837,730.
Of this, DOH said that 9,592 were active cases or 0.3 percent of the total number of cases. Among this number, 3,569 were mild, 3,375 were moderate, 1,797 were severe, 473 were asymptomatic while 378 were critical.
DOH also reported 390 recoveries bringing the total to 2,777,354 or 97.9 percent of the total number of cases while 45 have died bringing the death toll to 50,784 or 1.79 percent of the total number.
Meanwhile, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said in a press briefing that the country's epidemic curve showed that the current average daily cases have further decreased by 97 cases or 24 percent this week, and is now at 299 cases per day.
The current average daily cases have declined to surpass the lowest cases reported after April 2021 and August 2020 peaks. Looking at the epidemic curves of our major island groups and the National Capital Region (NCR) plus areas, all areas remain with flat case trends since the start of December.
"Nationally we remain to be a minimal risk case classification with a negative two week growth rate at negative 51 percent and low risk average daily attack rate of .32 cases for every 100,000 individuals," Vergeire explained.
She added that the National Health Systems capacity is at low risk. All regions are now at minimal risk case classification showing negative two-week growth rates and average daily attack rates of less than one per 100,000 population. Both total COVID-19 beds and ICU bed utilization are at low risk in all areas of the country.
NCR situation
NCR's daily cases have remained low with the recent week showing a decrease of six cases or seven percent from the previous week. Similar to the national data, the NCR's recent cases per day was already eight times lower than July of 2021 which was at 628 cases per day and also lower than January 2021 cases per day of 288, according to Vergeire.
She also mentioned that NCR is currently at minimal risk this classification with a negative two week growth rate and an average daily attack rate of .58 per 100,000 population.
Vergeire stated that the DOH continues to strictly monitor the presence of the Omicron variant in the country as the global scientific community continues to study the variant. She urged the public to remain vigilant, by strictly following minimum health protocols such as wearing of masks, proper hygiene, proper ventilation and physical distancing.
"Vaccination also remains to be the most effective way of protecting ourselves and our loved ones from all variants of COVID-19. Real world data even shows that COVID vaccines are indeed effective in preventing severe infections, hospitalizations and deaths," she said.