National Task Force (NTF) Chief Implementer Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. said the flattening of the COVID-19 curve "comes as a breath of fresh air" and should inspire people to continue efforts against the pandemic.

"The news from UP Octa research team that our country has finally flattened the COVID-19 curve comes as breath of fresh air. It means that all of our efforts to contain the spread of the disease and mitigate its impact are finally bearing fruit," Galvez said.

"It should serve as inspiration to all of us to continue what we have started and think other way to further improve this, as the saying goes, there is still a lot of room for improvement. We must not rest on our laurels," he added.

Galvez explained that flattening of the curve means that the speed of the spread of the virus is decreasing.

"Based on the study of UP -Octa Research Team, we have flattened the curve of Covid-19 in the country. It means we have lessen the speed of the spread of the ailment, while we give our health are system to cure their patients," he said.

"When the curve was flattened the R-Naught of COVID-19, or the number of people getting infected by a positive patient is decreasing. From the R-Naught of four on March, the R-Naught how in our country is just 0.94 only," he added.

However, Galvez emphasized that "people should not become complacent especially because the vaccine against the virus was not yet developed."

"The curve can go up again if we let our guard down. We do not want this to happen. Ultimately our goal is to see this curve go downward. Our goal is to see the continued decrease of cases in the country," he said.

Galvez reiterates that the Philippine has the highest number of COVID-19 testing conducted among the states in Southeast Asia.

"We have processed a total of 2,772,075 test samples from 2,601,281 individuals. We have surpassed our target of two million tests last August and we continue to strengthen this," he said.

"The number of testing that we have conducted is more than the number of testing conducted in Japan and South Korea, the countries which shows best practices on their specialization. We are the highest in Southeast Asia," he added. Robina Asido/DMS