A health official said Monday the number of Covid-19 infections continue to rise nationwide but assured that there is no surge in cases.

In a television interview, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said Covid-19 cases are continuously increasing especially in the National Capital Region (NCR).

“We try to avoid using this term [surge] from the previous increase in cases because this has caused a lot of confusion among the public,” she said. “We have started like this in the previous increase in cases just like in January or last September when there was Delta or Omicron respectively”.

The country has recorded around 2,458 new cases last week — about 60 to 70 percent increase in the number of infections.

“In NCR, we can see it has doubled already, their average number of cases from the previous week and we have seen there is 70 percent increase in the number of cases,” Vergeire said.

NCR’s average daily attack rate is now at 1.02.

“In fact for the longest time, we have less than one average daily attack rate and the positivity rate has also increased,” she added.

The start of the peak in number of infections is seen with the continuous rise in cases as compared to last month when the cases are on a plateau.

The entry of subvariants of Omicron, which are known to be more transmissible and to evade immunity, is one of the main factors for the rise in cases.

“Second, we know that our mobility patterns have already increased, we are about pre-pandemic already, our mobility, everybody goes to work, everybody goes to the different places,” Vergeire said.

The waning immunity of the population brought about by a very slow uptick of boosters would be the last factor, she added. (PNA)