DOH: Philippines remains at ‘low risk’ for COVID-19

The Philippines remains at “low risk” classification for COVID-19 with all islands except Mindanao showing a plateau case trend, the Department of Health (DOH) said Friday.

At the press briefing, DOH Officer-in-Charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said the country remains at low risk case classification with an average daily attack rate (ADAR) of 3.53 cases per 100,000 population.

Meanwhile, the National Capital Region (NCR) and Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) are still at “moderate risk” with ADAR of 8.83 and 8.54 per 100,000 population, respectively.

ADAR pertains to the incidence showing the average number of new cases in a period per 100,000 people.

Vergeire said there were 26,302 new cases reported from August 12 to 18.

“Ang nakitang patuloy na pagtaas ng kaso mula Mayo ay unti unti nang bumababa sa kasalukuyan. Nag-aaverage tayo ng 3,757 cases per day mas mababa ito by 6% than the previous week,” she said.

(The steady increase in cases seen since May is now gradually declining. We are averaging 3,757 cases per day, which is 6% lower than the previous week.)

“Ang Mindanao na may higit 400 cases per day ay nagpapakita pa rin incremental increases nitong mga nakaraang araw. Samantala, the rest of the areas nagpapakita na ng pagplateau,” she added.

(The region of Mindanao recorded more than 400 cases per day and is still showing incremental increases in recent days. Meanwhile, the rest of the areas are showing a plateau.)

The national positivity rate also dropped to 16.7% from 18.5% last week, according to Vergeire.

The positivity rate refers to the percentage of people who were found positive for COVID-19 among the total number of individuals tested.

Vergeire, however, said the national intensive care units (ICU) and severe or critical admissions remain on an uptrend.

She also reported that the ICU admissions is currently almost twice of the occupancies at the start of July 2022.

COVID-19 vaccination

The DOH OIC said at least 72.3 million Filipinos have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as of August 18.

Around 6.8 million senior citizens were already inoculated, while more than 9.8 million adolescents along with 4.5 million children were fully vaccinated, according to Vergeire.

She said more than 17.3 million individuals have received their first booster dose and more than 1.9 million have received their second dose.

For the PinasLakas campaign, Vergeire reported that 21,073 senior citizens were vaccinated out of the 1.7 million target.

Meanwhile, 1,729,547 individuals have received their first booster dose out of the 23 million target.

Vergeire earlier said the campaign dubbed “PinasLakas” aims to give booster shots to 23.8 million Filipinos within the first 100 days of the Marcos administration.

To date, the DOH said more than 18,900 “PinasLakas” vaccination sites have been launched all over the country.

Free, safe, and effective vaccines are made available in these areas including markets, schools, workplaces, terminals, places of worship, and mobile vaccination sites, among others.—AOL, GMA News