DOH

The Department of Health (DOH) has yet to observe a significant rise in Covid-19 cases even after the gatherings conducted during the recent holiday season.

The number of new Covid-19 cases is still decreasing, said DOH Officer-in-Charge Maria Rosario Vergeire on Tuesday, Jan. 10.

"As we have reported, we are having this plateau in cases. Our cases are declining both nationally and even in the regional areas of the country," Vergeire said in a press briefing.

"Ngayong araw (Today), meron tayong nakitang (we have seen a) one percent increase. But this is not significant for us to say that there is really this uptick in cases as a result of the holiday season," she added.

Meanwhile, Vergeire said they will continue to monitor the case trend following the celebration of the Feast of the Black Nazarene.

Vergeire expressed hope that cases will not have a significant rise in the coming days since most of the devotees followed the different health protocols.

"We will continuously monitor. Dapat bumilang ng two weeks na (We have to count two weeks for the) incubation period so we can see if it had an effect on the number of cases. Hopefully hindi pumalo ang mga kaso (the cases will not increase)," she said.

In relation, the Health official said that daily cases in mid-February may still remain below 1,000.

"Based on our latest forecast or projections, cases by Feb. 15, if ever minimum public health standards declines and tuloy tuloy pasok ng variants na highly evasive and transmissible, we would see hanggang 730 cases by Feb. 15 (highly evasive and transmissible variants continue to enter , we would see up to 730 cases by Feb. 15)," said Vergeire.

"Hanggang ganung level lang ang nakikita ng ating projections ngayon (Our projections are only at that level). And as we always say, This is not cast in stone, these are just estimates to help us prepare our units, hospitals, and surveillance system," she added.

At present, the country's average daily number of new cases was at 447, based on the DOH-Covid-19 case bulletin for the period of Jan. 2 to 8.

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