HEALTH Secretary Franciso Duque III on Friday said it’s still too early to put the National Capital Region under Alert Level 2 amid increase in Covid-19 infections in some areas.
Interviewed on Super Radyo dzBB, Duque explained that the Health Department should monitor the country’s two-week growth and average daily attack rate per hundred thousand population first to determine if there’s a need to put NCR into a higher alert level.
The capital region is currently under Alert Level 1 — the most relaxed among the five-tier COVID-19 alert levels — until end of this month.
“Mag-aantay pa tayo hanggang makita natin yung risk classification ay tataas kasi nasa low-risk classification pa rin tayo,” Duque said.
“Kapag ka ito ay nag-moderate risk, ibig sabihin ay either high-risk na yung ating two-week growth rate or parehong moderate rate risk ‘yung two-week growth rate at ating average daily attack rate per hundred thousand population. Kumbaga ‘yan ‘yung gauge natin kung meron bang basis for an escalation to Alert Level 2,” he said.
“Sa ngayon wala pa at lalong di pa naapektuhan yung ating healthcare utilization rate na as of Wednesday, nasa less than 20 percent.’ ‘Yung ating non-ICU bed capacity, 17% (samantalang) nasa 16% yung ICU high capacity. Mababa pa ito,” he added.
In the past one week, OCTA Research observed a 19% increase in the daily average Covid-10 cases in the NCR.
The independent monitoring group said cases during the May 13 to 19 period went up to 71 from 59 recording during the May 6 to 12 period.
NCR’s reproduction number, which refers to the number of people infected by one case, also increased to 0.90, which is considered “moderate,” from 0.76, which is considered low.
A reproduction number that is below 1 indicates that the transmission of the virus is slow.
metrosundaily
