The Department of Health (DOH) on Saturday (Oct. 23) said there is a possibility to de-escalate Metro Manila’s alert level if reported new cases and hospital occupancy continue to decline.
According to the department, the National Capital Region (NCR) is under moderate risk classification in terms of cases, with an average daily attack rate of 9.87 and a two-week growth rate of -52%.
The region’s health systems capacity has also improved to the low-risk category with 39% bed utilization and 48% intensive care unit (ICU) utilization.
“Kapag tiningnan natin at magtuloy-tuloy ang pagbaba ng kaso at mga tao sa ospital, we are seeing that the possibility of being deescalated to level 2 is very high,” DOH USec. Maria Rosario Vergeire said in the Saturday Laging Handa briefing.
The health official said cases may continue to decline based on FASSSTER projections, but brought up the use of case detection in line with projections.
“Kapag tiningnan ang detection to isolation ngayon, ito ay nasa 4 days. Kapag tumaas po iyan, magkakaroon din tayo ng pagtaas ng kaso, she said.
“Sana ma-maintain natin lahat so that we can be able to de-escalate to alert level 2 come November,” she added.
Delta sublineage
The DOH said sufficient studies and evidence have yet to be released regarding the Delta variant’s AY4.2 sublineage which was reported to be 10% more transmissible.
“Patuloy na pinag-aaralan ang epekto nito sa transmission at sa vaccine efficacy. Hanggang sa ngayon, wala pang completed evidence and it is not classified yet as a variant of concern or variant of interest,” she said.
The government has been studying the possible establishment of a red travel alert on countries with increasing COVID-19 cases. Monitoring is ongoing for the sublineage, but AY4.2 has not yet been detected in the country. – Report from Patrick de Jesus/AG- bny
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