THE independent OCTA Research group yesterday said at least seven provinces have registered zero cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) for more than a week already.
In a social media post, OCTA fellow Guido David said there have been no new COVID-19 cases reported in Tawi-Tawi, Mountain Province, Dinagat Islands, Quirino, Romblon, Batanes and Sulu.
“Tawi Tawi had 15 days of no new Covid cases, as of March 19, 2022; while Mountain Province had 11 days (of no new cases),” said David.
Dinagat Islands, Quirino, and Romblon, on the other hand, have had seven days each of seeing no new cases, while it has been six days each for Batanes and Sulu since a new case of COVID-19 had been reported.
OCTA said the numbers are based on the online case tracker of the Department of Health (DOH).
The health department earlier said that while the daily case bulletin has been scrapped, the regular COVID-19 data needed by some groups may still be accessed in their online case tracker.
“The daily number of cases are still being reported in our daily tracker. If ever, any firm doing research or any academic institutions or anybody at all, can still access our daily tracker and get the numbers there,” said Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire last Friday.
As for the daily case bulletin, the DOH official said they are ready to bring it back if deemed necessary.
“Once we see that there is an uptick of cases once again, definitely, we will bring back the number of cases for us to be able to track them,” said Vergeire.
She, however, stressed that such a case bulletin will have a different format if it is brought back.
“We will highlight the severe and critical cases as well as the occupancy rates of our hospitals in the case bulletins once cases start to increase, if ever that will happen,” said Vergeire.
