Despite longer doubling time, DOH cannot say if COVID-19 curve has been flattened

June 23, 2020

One hundred days since the government imposed a community quarantine to curb the coronavirus disease (2019), the Department of Health (DOH) said Tuesday it cannot say if the Philippines has flattened the curve.

President Rodrigo Duterte imposed an enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in the whole of Luzon on March 16 with other areas soon following suit.

In a virtual press conference, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said there are still COVID-19 hotpots in some parts of the country.

"We would like to be cautious in saying that we have flattened the curve because we are seeing spikes in cases in some of the areas in the country," said Vergeire.

Vergeire said there is prolonged case doubling time of COVID-19 from the previous two to three days.

"Our case doubling time is at 7.26 days compared to when we started off with 2 to 3 days.... The numbers double in about a week now," she said.

She said critical care utilization rate has remained low as only a small fraction of isolation beds, intensive care units, and mechanical ventilators are in use.

"With our critical care utilization rate, our numbers show that we are still at 35 percent... This means we are able to capacitate our health system," said Vergeire.

"There are many things we want to improve on because, as we say, the virus and the situation is constantly evolving. Everyday, there are changes," she said.

"We see several weaknesses in the system that we want to improve on so we can have more appropriate responses," added Vergeire.

Among them, she said, is the improvement of the information system for the COVID-19 response as well as data analysis. The DOH wants to enhance their laboratory and healthcare facilities as well as human resources.  DMS