NCR, 16 other regions now ‘minimal risk’ for Covid-19

MANILA – All 17 regions in the country are now classified “minimal risk” for the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) while all island groups showed plateauing in the case trend.

In an online media forum, Director Alethea de Guzman, Department of Health (DOH) Epidemiology Bureau officer-in-charge, said the country logged an average of 380 cases per day for the period of December 8 to 14.

The number is 26 percent lower than the average of 516 cases per day during the previous week.

“This is among our lowest cases since we had the peak around August 2020 last year, 1,130 cases for the period of December 27 to January 2, and after the April 2021 peak at 4,982 cases for the period of July 12 to 18,” De Guzman said.

As for the National Capital Region (NCR), the average daily cases reported is lower than the lowest cases after the peak months of August 2020 and April 2021.

For the period December 8 to 14, NCR’s average daily cases was 83, or 20 percent lower than the 104 logged on December 1 to 7.

“Nationally, all regions are at minimal risk case classification with the continuous negative two-week growth rate and average daily reported cases of less than one per 100,000 population in the current week and the health systems capacity are at low risk in all areas,” De Guzman said.

The percentage of critical cases are slowly declining, too.

As of December 13, about 226 or 19 percent of the 1,207 total admissions are severe cases and only 81 or 7 percent are critical.

The country’s death tally for December 1 to 14 is 80 or an average of six deaths per day.

All regions remain under Alert Level 2.

The DOH said it is monitoring Lapulapu City and General Santos City after they recorded a positive two-week growth rate.

No Omicron variant case has been detected to date.