THE OCTA Research group said that the COVID-19 reproduction number in National Capital Region (NCR) has further slipped to a downward trend, prompting the group to say that the country’s battle against the highly contagious Delta variant might be nearing its end.
OCTA Research fellow Guido David said Friday that the trend of COVID-19 cases in the region has dropped from the previous 0.99 reproduction number to 0.97.
Based on the figure David shared via a Tweet, Metro Manila has recorded a negative 22 percent growth rate for a seven-day average of 4,480 new positive cases, which was logged from September 17 to September 23.
Within the same period, all 17 local government units (LGUs) are at negative one week growth rate. Of these, 13 city governments registered a reproduction number of less than one, which OCTA Research first claimed as an ideal reproduction number.
Navotas was reported to have the lowest reproduction number and average daily attack rate (ADAR) of only 0.57 and 15.89, respectively.
While reproduction number pertains to the average number of persons contracted with COVID-19 by a single positive case, ADAR refers to the amount of new daily cases per 100,000 individuals.
David has earlier said that the decrease in COVID-19 cases across the region began as soon as NCR was placed under modified enhanced community quarantine and during the pilot testing of granular lockdowns.
However, despite the deceleration of the reproduction number, the overall status of the region is still at high risk.
Department of Health (DOH) Undersecretary and spokesperson Maria Rosario Vergeire said that the NCR remains to have the highest ADAR with 38.04 cases per 100,000 population.
She further reminded that the country’s trend depends on several factors, including the testing output and detection activities such as active case finding and testing.
Usec. Vergeire further underscored that the NCR, since September 16, is still under Alert Level 4 under the government’s new five-level alert scheme.
Areas classified under Alert Level 4 are those with high or soaring COVID-19 case counts while hospital beds utilization is at high rate.
With cases continuously surging outside the NCR, as of September 24, 2021, the Philippines has logged 2,434,753 total cases, with 165,790 listed as active cases.
There were also 17,411 new infections, with 177 new fatalities and 14,090 recoveries based on DOH data.