The entire country will remain under Alert Level 2 until the end of the year as the COVID-19 pandemic remains a threat, the Palace said Wednesday.
Acting presidential spokesman Karlo Nograles said the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) approved the recommendation to retain the alert level 2 in the country from Dec. 16 to 31.
Despite declining cases of COVID-19 cases in most parts of the country, Nograles said that it is not yet the right time to be complacent, given the detection of two imported cases of the highly infectious Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
"We want to keep our people safe, and we will do what is necessary. We still have to ramp up our vaccination, we are being very cautious as we should," Nograles added.
The Philippines logged 237 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, bringing the total number of cases to 2,836,915.
The latest daily case count is the second lowest recorded since the 235 new infections posted on Dec. 14, 2021.
The country’s positivity rate was 1 percent, based on test results of samples from 30,397 people tested on Dec. 13.
The director of the DOH Epidemiology Bureau said the number of active cases could drop to below 2,000 by the end of January if the public continues to comply with minimum public health standards.
At a briefing Wednesday, De Guzman said active cases may go down to 5,953 by the end of December and further decrease to 1,766 by the end of January if public health standards are maintained.
On Tuesday, the Cardinal Santos Medical Center (CSMC) reported they no longer have any COVID-19 patients in the hospital.
“Being the first hospital to attend to the first recorded local transmission of COVID-19 in the Philippines, we are glad to announce that we have zero active COVID-19 patients on our COVID floors,” CSMC said in a statement.
The CSMC earlier said that the fifth patient of COVID-19 in the Philippines was diagnosed in their hospital. (See full story online at manilastandard.net)
This patient and his wife were the first patients to be directly linked to the presence of community transmission in the country.
“We are grateful to all our medical frontliners who worked tirelessly since the pandemic started,” it said.
The vaccination campaign in the country is currently ongoing, with the government aiming to get at least 54 million Filipinos fully vaccinated by the end of 2021.
The inoculation of booster shots is continuous to all fully-vaccinated adults, including health care workers, who reached the six-month requirement.
There were 100 new fatalities reported, bringing the COVID-19 death toll to 50,449.
The DOH also reported 565 new recoveries, bringing the total recoveries to 2,776,273.
There were 10,193 active cases, of which 567 were asymptomatic; 3,876 mild; 3,492 moderate; 1,867 severe; and 391 critical.
Nationwide, 22 percent of ICU beds, 25 percent of isolation beds, 12 percent of ward beds, and 13 percent of ventilators, were in use.
In Metro Manila, 24 percent of ICU beds, 20 percent of isolation beds, 17 percent of ward beds, and 14 percent of ventilators, were in use.
