Robredo urges vigilance as COVID-19 cases continue to rise

Vice President Leni Robredo on Sunday urged the public to observe minimum health standards as COVID-19 cases in the country continued to increase at an accelerated rate.

“Sa tagal ng lockdown, ‘yong iba naiinip na. ‘Yong iba naman dahil medyo bumaba ‘yong kaso, may mga araw na 1,000 plus na lang, nag-kampante na. Pero ngayon, nakakatakot kasi last three days, 3,000 plus ‘yong kaso,” she said in her weekly radio show.

On Saturday, the country broke its 2021 record for the highest number of new COVID-19 cases in a single day with 3,439 new infections, bringing the total to 591,138.

This marks the second consecutive day in which more than 3,000 daily cases have been recorded. The previous highest recorded daily case count for this year was 3,045 cases on Friday.

Further, the Vice-president called on Filipinos to not be complacent despite the arrival of the vaccines.

Earlier, the OCTA Research group said the National Capital Region’s 1,025 new cases per day on the average from Feb. 28 to March 6 represented an increase of 42% from the week before and an increase of 130% compared to two weeks ago.

Metro Manila's reproduction rate for the period went up to 1.66.

The OCTA Research group said the current surge is "spreading more quickly than the July-August surge."

They said this may be due to the coronavirus variants detected in the country.

The capital region’s positivity rate also went up to an average of 8% the past seven days, while hospital bed occupancy was at 44% and ICU occupancy rate was at 53% overall.

Researchers believed that the numbers would continue to increase throughout March. — DVM, GMA News