After three weeks of being under critical risk case classification for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the country and the National Capital Region (NCR) has gone down to high-risk case classification, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said on Monday, Jan. 24
During the President's pre-recorded public address, Duque reported that the country's seven-day moving average of reported daily cases fell by 18 percent from Jan. 18 to Jan. 24 at 28,642 cases.
This was from 34,860 cases from Jan. 11 to Jan. 17 which was 70 percent higher than the week prior.
Metro Manila's seven-day moving average of reported daily cases was also down to 7,328 from Jan. 18 to Jan. 24, lower by 56 percent from the past week which was at 16,547 from Jan. 11 to Jan. 17.
"Maliwanag dito Mr. President, ang porsyento ng pagtaas ng mga kaso ay unti-unti na pong bumababa (It's clear Mr. President, the percentage of positive cases is slowly decreasing)," Duque said.
Duque also mentioned that NCR and plus areas are showing case decline while the rest of Luzon have shown signs of plateauing. On the other hand, sustained case increase has been observed in the rest of island groups.
Meanwhile, the country posted a moderate-risk two week growth rate which was down to 176 percent with an average daily attack rate of 28.46 which was still high, according to Duque. This was far from the previous two-week growth rate of 3661 percent.
On the other hand, NCR also posted a moderate-risk two week growth rate of 65 percent with an average daily attack rate of 84.56.
Meanwhile, Duque stated that the national health system's capacity is now at moderate risk. Only Region 5 and BARMM are under high-risk Intensive Care Unit (ICU) utilization rate.
"Bumaba rin po ang ICU utilization rate ng NCR kasi nagdagdag din po sila ng mga kama, maliban doon sa pagbaba ng mga kaso, kaya po bumaba rin ang kanilang utilization rate. Ganun din po sa total bed utilization ng NCR (NCR's ICU utilization rate decreased because they increased their bed capacity, aside from the decline in cases, that's why their utilization rate lowered. It's the same with the bed utilization)," he said.
On the other hand, of the 13,959 total confirmed admissions as of Jan. 23, only 1,324 or 9 percent were severe cases while 533 or 5 percent were critical.
Duque said that these metrics will be discussed with the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) to determine if Metro Manila is ready to de-escalate to a more relaxed Alert Level 2 status for February.