DOH: COVID CASES CONTINUE TO DROP

COVID-19 cases in the country continue to drop, the Department of Health (DoH) said Thursday.

From February 27 to March 4, only 251 new Covid cases were reported, or an average of 36 cases a day.

This is 27 percent lower than the average 133 daily cases last February 20 to 26.

Only three of the cases were either severe or critical. Seven deaths were recorded, five of which occurred from February 20 to March 4.

The DoH said the low severity and fatality rates can be attributed to the high vaccination coverage.

Out of the 1,185 dedicated Covid-19 intensive care unit (ICU) beds available, only 115 or 10 percent were occupied. Only 1,119 or 11 percent of the 10,097 dedicated Covid non-ICU beds were in use.

“Moving forward, we have learned our lessons and we now know better. The UHC (Universal Health Care) Act is still our reference, and it is the order of President Marcos to strengthen primary health care to prepare us for the next pandemic,” said Health Secretary Teodoro “Ted” Herbosa.

The DoH said it is monitoring new infectious disease threats, along with the many other health conditions affecting Filipinos, even four years after the Inter-agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) imposed a nationwide enhanced community quarantine.

It has also been a year since President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. declared that Covid-19 is no longer a public health emergency, on the recommendation of the IATF-EID and consistent with pronouncements by the World Health Organization.