MANILA, Philippines — All cities – except one – in the National Capital Region (NCR) have a “high” incidence of new coronavirus transmissions, as shown in the simplified COVID-19 data processed by the Office of the Vice President (OVP).
In the information made public by OVP on Monday, only Caloocan City was tagged “orange” which means it has a “medium” occurrence of COVID-19 transmission.
OVP’s data used colors red, orange, green, and yellow as indicators of the severity of virus infection in an area. Specifically, it says that red signifies “high” COVID-19 spread as it means that an area has over 100 active cases per 100,000 of the population; orange signifies “medium” as an area has more than 50 active patients but less than 100 cases per 100,000 people; green signifies “low” because the area registers more than zero active cases but less than 50 cases per 100,000 of the population; and yellow signifies no transmission of the SARS-CoV-2, the latest strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
Vice President Leni Robredo earlier explained that their method in analyzing the statistics takes into consideration the number of people residing in an area instead of merely reading the number of cases as it is, or as an absolute number.
Nationwide, the top five local government units with the highest SARS-CoV-2 transmission rates relative to its population also came from Metro Manila, according to the OVP data. All in all, 62 cities and municipalities and two regions – Central Luzon and NCR – were tagged “red” by the OVP.
In Metro Manila, San Juan City has the highest transmission rate with 382.57 active cases per 100,000; trailed by Pateros with 306.01 active cases per 100,000; Mariveles in Bataan with 270.23 active cases per 100,000; Makati City with 242.57 active cases per 100,000; and Kawit in Cavite with 240.22 active cases per 100,000 people.
This latest initiative of Robredo’s office was borne out of observations that the Department of Health data are sometimes confusing and convoluted, and do not paint a clear picture of which area should be prioritized in terms of assistance.
OVP’s COVID-19 could be accessed here.
READ: OVP to launch ‘simplified’ website showing COVID-19 status of LGUs
Robredo on Sunday said in her radio program that they adopted the standards used by the Lancet COVID-19 Commission in determining which countries are successful in fending off the virus and which are faring badly.
“Noong lumabas iyong Lancet Study, parang international study ito ng parang performance ng mga bansa pagdating sa COVID-19 response, mayroon siyang mga international standards na ginagamit na sinusubukan naming gawin ng parang local version iyon para mas maayos iyong ating pag-analisa,” Robredo said.
(When the Lancet Study came out, it is an international study which gauged the performance of countries when it came to COVID-19 response, they had international standards which we are trying to replicate in a local version so we could analyze data more efficiently.)
“So ito lahat, naka-base sa datos ng DOH pero sini-simplify namin. Gustong sabihin, sini-simplify namin pero ginagamit namin iyong international standards,” she added.
(So all of these were based on data provided by DOH but we would simplify them. We want to say that we can simplify this but we are using international standards.)
In the study released by the Lancet COVID-19 Commission, 19 countries have successfully beaten the virus with no transmissions recorded — 10 of which are in the Asia Pacific region. The Philippines, on the other hand, was ranked 66th out of 91 countries surveyed as it has a moderate transmission.
READ: Int’l medical journal ‘Lancet’ ranks PH 66th out of 91 countries in fight vs COVID-19
READ: Robredo cites data showing countries beating COVID-19 while awaiting vaccine
The Philippines is currently in the top 20 countries with most COVID-19 cases. As of October 12, the country has confirmed 342,816 cases of COVID-19, including 43,000 are active cases, 293,152 recoveries, and 6,332 deaths.