Researchers from the University of the Philippines on Thursday said the decrease in COVID-19 cases in the country was in line with the decline in the coronavirus’s reproduction number, or the expected number of people who will be infected by one carrier.
In its Oct. 6 report, the UP OCTA Research team said the country’s reproduction number was 0.87, which is below the threshold of 1 at which the virus will continue to spread.
“The number of cases in the Philippines has been decreasing, and currently at less around 2,500 new cases per day (based on case reports),” the researchers said in their report.
The figure is lower than the close to 4,000 new cases per day recorded during the last week of August.
“The reproduction number in the Philippines is 0.87, in line with the downward trend in test reports,” the report added.
The number of cases in the National Capital Region also went down to less than 1,000 new cases per day, it noted. Its reproduction number stayed below 1 at 0.82 from Aug. 25 to Oct. 5.
The positivity rate for Metro Manila dropped to 8 percent from the 14 percent recorded during the end of August. The figure is still above the World Health Organization ideal rate of 5 percent, however.
OCTA Research said the positive development is not irreversible and advised the government to strictly enforce minimum health standards to sustain the downward trend.
hat the government must intensify its test, trace, and treat strategy to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
On the other hand, the private sector should complement the government’s anti-COVID-19 measures, it said.
The country logged 2,363 new COVID-19 cases Thursday, bringing the total to 331,869 since the pandemic started, the Department of Health (DOH) reported.
This is the fourth straight day that the daily tally of cases is below 3,000, although the DOH reported that 20 testing laboratories were not able to submit their results.
Except for Oct. 4 and Sept. 28, the Philippines has been logging fewer than 3,000 new cases a day for more than two weeks.
The DOH reported 144 new fatalities bringing the death toll from COVID-19 to 6,069.
There were 697 new recoveries, bringing to 274,318 the number of patients who have recovered from the disease.
That left 51,482 active cases, 85.7 percent of which are mild, 9.8 percent of which are asymptomatic, 1.4 percent of which are severe and 3.1 percent of which are critical.
In their report, the UP researchers also advised the government to impose stricter quarantine measures in nine areas are considered high-risk because their daily attack rate per 1,000 is greater than 1.0 percent.
These were Benguet, including Baguio City; Davao del Sur, including Davao City; Iloilo, Iloilo City; Misamis Oriental, including Cagayan de Oro; Nueva Ecija; Quezon Pangasinan, including Dagupan;Western Samar, and Zamboanga del Sur, including Zamboanga City.
However, in a Palace briefing Thursday, Secretary Carlito Galvez, chief implementer of the government’s response against COVID-19, said “granular lockdowns,” not stricter quarantine measures, would be implemented in high-risk areas.
