DOH: NCR’s early descent to Alert Level 2 not arbitrary
THE Department of Health has assured that the move to de-escalate the quarantine status of the National Capital Region to Alert Level 2 was based on metrics and was in no way sudden or arbitrary.
Health undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the situation in the NCR was monitored and better statistics in hospitals were observed.
“Hindi naman siya naging biglaan. We were able to monitor the situation in NCR, nagkaroon lang ng ibang timeline kasi ang pagdedeklara natin ng panahon para rito,” she said.
Vergeire said the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases based the de-escalation move on the different metrics it used.
“Nakita natin na since last week or two weeks ago bumaba na ang kanilang healthcare utilization, at sa ngayon less than 50% ang kanilang beds occupied in their hospitals. And then ang two-week growth rate ay negatibo,” she added.
The average daily attack rate (ADAR), or the number of new daily cases per 100,000 population was also low in the past week to just five, from the previous record of 10.
“This is less than seven, so [NCR] has been classified as low risk already and had been de-escalated to Alert Level 2,” Vergeire pointed out.
The DOH official also reported that statistics on the use of non-COVID beds remains stable.
“If we try to look at occupancy in our hospitals right now, nakita nating patuloy na bumababa ang admissions for COVID cases. And makikita natin stable naman at hindi ganoon kataasan ang occupancy sa non-COVID beds,” she said, adding that comparisons were made from the same period last year or in the previous month.
Vergeire further reported that the country currently has an average of 10 deaths per day with 49 deaths reported in November. The peak number of deaths happened in September with 193 deaths per day on average.
However, the health undersecretary reminded that sustaining the lowering of the number of COVID cases it would depend of the cooperation of the public.
“It will all depend on how all of us will try to cooperate so that we would be able to sustain the lowering of the number of cases in NCR and even in the whole country,” she stressed.
