Metro Manila remains at moderate risk for COVID-19 and will shift to Alert Level 1 only if the average daily attack rate drops to 7 per 100,000 population, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said Thursday.
In an interview on GMA-7, Duque said that although new COVID-19 cases have dropped 83 percent in the last two weeks the average daily attack rate or ADAR was still high at 12.2.
On the other hand, he said the bed utilization rate in the National Capital Region (NCR) has dropped to 28 percent and only 32.28 percent of ICU beds were in use.
The Philippines logged 4,575 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, bringing the total case count to 3,627,575, the Department of Health (DOH) reported.
The positivity rate was 15.1 percent, based on 36,407 people tested for COVID-19 on Feb. 8.
The top regions with cases in the recent two weeks were Region 6 (Western Visayas) with 451 or 13 percent, Region 7 (Central Visayas) with 400 or 12 percent, and National Capital Region (Metro Manila) with 392 or 11 percent.
There were 94 new fatalities reported, bringing the COVID-19 death toll to 54,783.
The DOH also reported 7,504 new recoveries, bringing the total number of recoveries to 3,479,485.
There were 93,307 active cases, of which 3,316 were asymptomatic; 85,244 were mild; 2,991 were moderate; 1,444 were severe; and 312 were critical.
Nationwide, 39 percent of ICU beds, 34 percent of isolation beds, 31 percent of ward beds, and 19 percent of ventilators, are in use.
In Metro Manila, 31 percent of ICU beds, 28 percent of isolation beds, 29 percent of ward beds, and 18 percent of ventilators, are in use.
Also on Thursday, the presidential adviser for entrepreneurship Joey Concepcion said with COVID-19 cases dropping, it might be time for the country to focus on the economy.
“We need to de-escalate from crisis mode to recovery mode,” he said. “This is important if Filipinos are to help rebuild our country by engaging in economic activity like going to shops, dining out, traveling or going back to work,” he said.