The National Capital Region (NCR) is now under moderate-risk case classification for Covid-19 as its positivity rate grows to 16. 4 percent, the Department of Health (DOH) said on Friday, Sept. 16.

DOH Officer-in-Charge Maria Rosario Vergeire stated during a press briefing that when they look at the positivity rate comparing it to the previous two weeks they saw that it really increased. She added that although this was the case, the hospital utilization rate is just at less than 40 percent.

"For the wards it's just 39 and for the ICU it's just 33 percent. Pero yung kanilang kaso ay dumadami ngayon kaya tumaas yung kanilang average daily attack rate (ADAR) (But their cases are increasing that's why their ADAR also went up)," Vergeire said.

"Ito pong ating NCR, if you try to look at this, disaggregating it, meron po tayong (we have) 11 out of the 17 cities and municipalities in NCR na nasa (that is under) moderate risk case classification," she added.

There are also six out of 17 regions, according to Vergeire, that saw an increase in ward admissions in their hospitals.

On the other hand, for Intensive Care Unit (ICU) utilization in NCR, only Pasig and Muntinlupa have shown increase in ICU admissions for Covid-19.

Meanwhile, Vergeire mentioned that the increase in Covid-19 cases cannot be attributed to the optional wearing of face masks outdoors that was recently mandated.

"As I've said, it will take us around one to two weeks for us to be able to analyze the effect of this easing of masking or optional masking outdoors," she said.

"What we can say, tumaas ang mobility mula nung nag-umpisa yung face-to-face classes so tinitingnan natin yung link at relasyon nito dito sa pagtaas kasi hindi naman natin nakikita yung ganitong pagtaas sa ibang rehiyon (What we can say is that mobility increased since the start of face-to-face classes so we're looking at the link or its relation to the increase in cases since we have not seen this in other regions)," she added.