THE uptick in new coronavirus infections nationwide has become more evident over the past week, with Mindanao’s case growth outpacing those in the National Capital Region (NCR) and the rest of Luzon, the Department of Health (DOH) Epidemiology Bureau noted Thursday, June 3, 2021.
On Thursday, the DOH case bulletin listed 7,217 new cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) and 199 additional mortalities, the highest in the last seven days, as 141 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were validated as deaths.
New infections have gone past 5,000 for nine consecutive days while deaths have exceeded 100 for seven out of the recent eight days.
These brought the cumulative case count to 1,247,899. There were 34 duplicates, including 16 recoveries, that were removed from the total.
The number of active cases climbed to 55,790, now comprising 4.5 percent of the total count, as recoveries were fewer at 3,483 than the new cases. Total recoveries went up to 1,170,752, or 93.8 percent of the total.
The additional mortalities raised the death toll to 21,357. The case fatality rate remained at 1.71 percent.
The daily positivity rate has also been increasing, reaching 14 percent on June 1 out of 44,197 samples tested, while testing output has been on a downtrend.
Trends
Dr. Alethea de Guzman, director of the Epidemiology Bureau, said in a media forum Thursday that cases nationwide averaged 6,691 per day from May 27 to June 2, nearly 30 percent higher than the 5,214 daily average from May 20 to 26.
Three regions, namely NCR, Cagayan Valley and Cordillera, continued to post high average daily attack rates, exceeding the DOH benchmark of 7 per 100,000 population.
Twelve regions continued to post positive two-week growth rates and are classified as moderate risk. Six of these 12 regions are in Mindanao, three in the Visayas and the rest are in Luzon.
The 12 regions are Zamboanga Peninsula, Caraga, Northern Mindanao, Mimaropa, Western Visayas, Soccsksargen, Ilocos, Davao, Central Visayas, Bicol, Eastern Visayas and Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
The daily tally of cases in Mindanao regions is just a fraction of those in the NCR Plus, but De Guzman said they noted that these were increasing faster as reflected in a steep incline in the epidemic curve.
“As cases continue to increase, there’s a risk of cases rising exponentially,” she said.
Of the three regions in the Visayas, Western Visayas posted a faster growth in cases compared to Central and Eastern Visayas, which are seeing a gradual increase.
Health system
De Guzman also said they were closely watching regions with high healthcare and intensive care unit (ICU) utilization rates.
Cagayan Valley is at high risk with an healthcare utilization rate (HCUR) of 71 percent and ICU occupancy of 78 percent as of June 1.
In Mindanao, Zamboanga Peninsula, Bangsamoro and Northern Mindanao are at high risk with ICU occupancy of 91 percent, 83 percent and 71 percent, respectively.
The ICU occupancy rate and HCUR in Central Visayas have gone down to 30 percent and 33 percent, respectively, as of June 1.
The regions with ICU occupancy rates of more than 60 percent were Bicol (69 percent), Western Visayas and Soccsksargen (both at 68 percent), and Caraga (64 percent).
On Wednesday, Davao Region with 368 new cases showed up on the list of regions with the highest number of new cases, after NCR (954), Calabarzon (775), Central Luzon (533) and Western Visayas (391).
Among the cities and provinces, the highest new cases on Wednesday were recorded in Cavite (285), Davao City (226), Quezon City (222), Laguna (183) and Batangas (150).
The daily average of new cases in the country peaked at around 10,800 in the week from April 9 to 15, but went down to 7,595 in the period from April 29 to May 5 and plateaued for most of May.
De Guzman said the daily average went down to 6,410 on May 6 to 12, 5,827 on May 13 to 19, and further to 5,214 on May 20 to 26.
Covid-19 deaths have decreased to 77 a day in May from 111 a day in April, but the daily average of 77 was still higher than the 2020 peak of 69 in August. (Marites Villamor-Ilano / SunStar Philippines)