THE OCTA Research Group hinted that the Philippines may hit a daily tally of no less than 20,000 cases of COVID-19 infections within the next two weeks.
The group said that virus reproduction rate doesn’t seem to show any sign of declining in areas outside the National Capital Region (NCR), citing a record-high of 17,231 cases logged by the Department of Health (DOH) over the weekend.
OCTA Research fellow Guido David said the reproduction rate, or the number of people infected by a single virus patient, is now at 1.45. Cases in areas outside Metro Manila are slowing down but are still rising, he added.
“‘The 20,000 cases looks very possible to reach within the next 2 weeks, that 20,000 cases in 1 day,” Guido was quoted as saying in a radio interview.
“That’s almost sure because the reproduction number nationwide is still not less than 1.”
David noted that the NCR, which was placed under a two-week strict lockdown earlier this month, has a reproduction rate of 1.67 versus 1.9 the previous week.
“The ECQ (enhanced community quarantine) has an effect but we can’t see the declines in the number of cases immediately. Most likely by the first or second week of September, the number of cases in Metro Manila will go down,” he said.
He went on to claim that the NCR is recording a daily average of 3,500 COVID-19 cases versus 4,000 previously, adding that its growth rate within the past week was 24 percent, a decrease from 72 percent two weeks ago.
“Based on what we see, it won’t be higher than 5,000 with the current trend,” he said.
“Our healthcare system won’t be able to relax not until the end of September.”
David also underscored the need for the government to seriously consider implementation of granular lockdowns, tighter border controls, and intensified vaccination, contact tracing, and testing against new variants.
“We are on lockdown because there’s a new variant… one of the most important, really, is our international border controls. If the variant didn’t get past our borders, we wouldn’t have a new wave or lockdown,” he said.
To date, the Philippines has logged a total recorded cases pegged at 1,824,051, of which 123,935 were active infections.