The Department of Health (DOH) said on Saturday (May 8) that it is still identifying whether the decline of COVID-19 cases in the past few days was a result of stricter protocols or was due to a lower number of submitted samples for testing.
DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire reported in the Laging Handa public briefing that the number of tests conducted between April 30 to May 6 declined by 9%, or to 342,00 from the nearly 374,000 tests between April 23 to 29.
“Nakita natin for these past weeks, bumababa po ang mga samples na ipinapasa ng mga implementing units natin sa ating laboratoryo kaya nakikita ho natin na bumababa rin po ang mga kaso,” Vergeire explained.
“Atin pa rin hong inuobserbahan kung ito po ay dala talaga nang pagkonti ng mga kaso, o hindi lang po natin nati-test ang ating mga kababayan nang mas madami,” she added.
The health official emphasized that there is no room for complacency yet, despite the reported gradual decline in COVID-19 hospital admissions.
She noted that the current nationwide average daily attack rate (ADAR) is at 7.8 per 100,000 population, and Metro Manila has 25 per 100,000 population which is considered high risk.
Watch this report from Bea Bernardo:
“We are going to continue to further expand our capacity for ICUs [intensive care units] para po mas prepared tayo in the coming months,” she assured.
Meanwhile, the department continues to intensify its biosurveillance measures and monitoring to prevent transmission of a variant found in India.
The genome sequencing result of some travelers from India who tested positive for COVID-19 may be released in the coming days. – Report from Bea Bernardo/AG-RIR
Watch the full interview with DOH USec. Vergeire:
