The Philippines is now classified under the moderate-risk classification after the Department of Health (DOH) recorded a continuous decline in coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases.
“The Philippines is now at moderate-risk case classification. Dati nasa high at critical risk tayo. Pero ngayon moderate nalang (Previously, we were at high to critical risk. But now it's under moderate). We show a negative one-week and two-week growth rate. Ang average daily attack rate natin nasa high-risk pa rin pero bumaba siya sa (Our average daily attack rate is still at high-risk but it already dropped to) 19.43 cases for every 100,000 individuals,” said DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire in a press briefing on Wednesday, Feb 2.
“Ang ating (Our) national health systems capacity/ total beds and ICU are both at low-risk...Hopefully, tuloy-tuloy po tayo (this trend continues),” she added.
On Wednesday, the DOH detected 7,661 new COVID-19 cases. The number of active infections nationwide has gone down to 160,297.
Among the active cases, 149,829 are mild; 5,575 have no symptoms; 3,056 are moderate; 1,521 are severe; and 316 are in critical state.
There were also 23,392 new recoveries and 43 more deaths, causing the recovery count and death toll to increase to 3,362,904 and 54,097, respectively.
Since 2020, the country has already recorded 3,577,298 confirmed cases of COVID-19.
COVID-19 among 5-years-old and below
Vergeire noted that they observed a slight increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in children aged five-years-old and below.
“Bagama’t nakikita nating bumababa na ang bilang ng mga kaso sa iba’t-ibang age groups, tumaas naman po ang mga kabataan na mas nakakabata sa limang-taon gulang kung ikukumpara po nung tayo ay nagkaroon ng Delta situation (Although we are seeing a decrease in the number of cases in various age groups, the number of cases among young people under five-years-old has increased as compared to when we had the Delta situation),” said Vergeire.
“Mula sa average na 35 percent tumaas ito bahagya sa 37 percent nitong Enero (From an average of 35 percent, it slightly rose to 37 percent this January),” she added.
However, Vergeire said this should not be a cause for panic among parents. She reiterated the importance of following the minimum public health standards and vaccination.
“Hindi naman natin kailangan ikulong ang ating mga bata dahil nakikita natin na tumataas ang kaso sa kanila (We don't need to restrict the movement of our children just because we see that the cases among them are increasing),” she said.
“Oo tumataas ang mga kaso pero halos lahat naman ng mga kasong ito ay banayad o mild. Hindi po natin kailangan takutin ang ating mga kabataan o magulang. Ang kailangan, bigyan ng mas maraming proteksyon ang bata (Yes, the number of cases is rising but almost all of these cases are mild. We do not need to scare our children or parents. What is needed is to give the child extra protection),” she added.
The DOH spokesperson once again urged parents to let their children aged five to 11 to get vaccinated against COVID-19 as the national government is set to open the vaccination program for the said age group on Friday, Feb. 4.