As the upcoming holiday season is fast approaching, a new Covid-19 spike of as high as 3,000 daily cases is being projected by the Department of Health.

In a media briefing, Health officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said the country could reach at least 3,172 cases per day based on the agency's latest projection.

"The latest projection made by our experts showed that we could have as high as 3,172 cases should the compliance with the minimum public health standards continue to drop," Vergeire said.

She warned the country's average daily cases at 1,288 could increase twice or thrice depending on the public's compliance with minimum health standards.

However, the official noted that the projection was not cast in stone, citing the many factors that can affect the number of infections. Vergeire said almost 75 percent of big hospitals in the country are currently occupied by non-Covid patients.

"Right now our Covid-19 admissions are just at minimum risk. Our hospital utilization rate is at just 16 percent but we have hospitals that we are monitoring," she said.

The official said the department is currently monitoring the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao due to its high intensive care unit utilization rate for Covid-19.

However, she pointed out that this is "understandable," noting that the BARMM has only 20 or fewer ICU beds.

Earlier, an independent research group said that the Covid-19 positivity rate in the National Capital Region climbed to 11.9 percent.

In a tweet, Dr. Guido David said the NCR Covid-19 positivity rate increased from 9.4 percent on 23 November to 11.9 percent on 30 November.