With the continuous rise in Covid-19 cases in the country, the Department of Health (DOH) said the country is now seeing the “start of the peak in the number of cases.”

“Right now, what we are seeing is that the number of cases are continuously increasing especially here in the National Capital Region. And we can see that this is really the start of the peak in the number of cases,” DOH spokesperson Usec. Maria Rosario S. Vergeire said during an interview with CNN Philippines, Monday, June 20.

She noted: “We have started like this in the previous increase of cases just like last January or last September when there was Delta and Omicron, respectively.”

Vergeire said the country has recorded 2,458 new Covid-29 cases for last week, saying such is around a 60 to 70 percent increase in the number of cases.

“In NCR, we can see that it has doubled already. Their average number of cases from the previous week, and we have seen that there is a 70 percent increase in the number of cases,” she said.

In addition, she said the NCR’s average attack rate is now at 1.02.

“For the longest time we have less than one average daily attack rate, and positivity rate has also increased,” Vergeire noted.

The DOH, she said, is guiding the public and making them aware that such an increase in cases might be the start of the continuous rise of cases “in the next couple of weeks.”

When asked for the possible reasons for the increase in cases, Vergeire said the foremost reason is the entry of the sub-variants of Omicron in the country.

“These variants had been reported to be more transmissible and they also evade immunity, the immunity that the vaccines have given us,” the DOH spokesperson noted.

The next reason, she said, is the mobility patterns of the public have increased, returning to the pre-pandemic.

Last she cited is the waning immunity of the population “due to slow uptick of our booster.”