The Department of Health (DOH) said on Tuesday, March 1 that it will be making weekly coronavirus disease (COVID-19) case reports beginning March 7, next week.
During the DOH media forum, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said that the agency saw the need to switch its focus to a more proactive and long-term health solution thereby deciding to provide weekly case bulletins instead of the daily case update.
"Dahil may higit sa (Because there are over) 63 million fully-vaccinated Filipinos na at patuloy na bumababa ang COVID-19 cases nakita ng DOH ang (and COVID-19 cases continue to decline, DOH saw the) need to shift our focus," she explained.
"Dahil dito, minabuti ng Kagawaran ng Kalusugan na gawing weekly ang ating COVID-19 case updates (Because of this, the DOH opted to turn the daily COVID-19 updates to weekly)," she added.
Vergeire also mentioned that this was done to reduce frequency for meaningful data and de-emphasize daily numbers to highlight long-term recovery. She added that they will still focus on healthcare capacity, vaccination rates, as well as weekly trends.
All weekly updates will be released every Monday at 4 p.m. with additional timely updates provided whenever necessary and will start on March 7, 2022.
Vergeire has stated that if mild cases would continue to be observed under Alert Level 1 status, the government, instead of focusing on the number of cases, would look at the utilization rates of hospitals specifically for severe and critical cases as basis for its decision to elevate the alert level status.
Vergeire said that this is part of the fifth phase of the government's National Action Plan (NAP) which is on the shift to the new normal or moving from the pandemic to the endemic phase.
DOH reports 1,067 new cases, zero deaths
DOH reported 1,067 new COVID-19 cases on Tuesday (Feb. 1). This brings the total number of cases to 3,664,059.
Active cases stood at 51,592 or 1.4 percent of the total number of cases. Of the 1,067 reported cases today, 652 or 61 percent occurred within the recent 14 days from Feb. 16 to March 1. The top regions with cases in the recent two weeks were NCR with 144 or 22 percent, Region 4-A with 92 or 14 percent and Region 3 with 72 or 11 percent.
Among the active cases, 46,609 are mild; 2,779 are moderate; 1,417 are severe; 489 are asymptomatic while 298 are in critical condition.
The DOH also reported 1,662 new recoveries bringing the total to 3,555,016 or 97.1 percent of the total number of cases while zero deaths were recorded.