The average daily death toll from COVID-19 has decreased to less than100, a Department of Health (DOH) official said on Thursday.

During the ''Laging Handa'' public briefing, Alethea De Guzman, director of the DOH epidemiology bureau, said deaths due to COVID-19 decreased this month compared to previous months.

"We will see that the deaths this October are less compared to September and August," she said.

"We peaked at a 168 deaths per day in September, and now we just have an average of 68 deaths per day," she added.

However, despite the decreasing number of cases and deaths, De Guzman said the public still has to continue to follow the protocols to see continuous decline of cases, utilization rates, as well as fatalities.

De Guzman said based on national data the country is at low risk in the case classification "because our two-week growth rate is negative and our average daily attack rate is now at low risk at 5.06 per 100,000 population."

"The decrease in COVID-19 cases nationally is also felt in our utilization rates because our utilization rate and ICU beds are both at low risk." she said.

"In the NCR, we are in the moderate risk case classification because although our two-week growth rate is negative, our average daily attack rate is still high reaching 7.35 per 100,000 population. While like our national data our utilization rate in NCR was also reduced to under 50 percent, both in the total bed and the ICU utilization," she added. Robina Asido/DMS