Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said fatalities due to COVID-19 are expected to increase "after a week or two" as the country is now at "critical risk case classification" due to the continued surge caused by the Omicron variant.

"Our country is now at critical risk case classification with an increase of 690 percent in our seven-day moving average of daily reported cases; 3,663 percent for the two-week growth rate; 10.47 average daily attack rate; and 40.4 percent positivity rate," Duque said during the Talk To The People with President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday night.

Duque said statistics show that the mortality curve has plateaued after it continued to decrease following the last surge recorded in September of 2022.

"Our mortality curve, we see that the case spiked last September where it hit 7,000 plus with 240 plus daily fatality count. It decreased in the past months, October, November, December. In January we recorded 42 and it is equal to four deaths a day," he said.

"We see the continued decrease but it has started to plateau. But we expect, Mr. President, that after a week or two, it will also increase like what happened in our previous surges," he added.

Duque noted that the country is experiencing the fourth surge of COVID-19 since the previous year.

"We actually already had four surges. The first was March to April; July to August (in 2020); and then we have the latest which was August-September( 2021)," he said.

Duterte admitted that COVID-19 cases are "becoming more alarming everyday".

"In other words we have a problem... the new cases of Covid19 continue to rise daily," he said. Robina Asido/DMS