OCTA member hopes NCR’s COVID-19 reproduction number goes down to 1.0 by Wed

MANILA, Philippines — A member of the OCTA Research group that tracks COVID-19 trends in the country hopes that the coronavirus reproduction number in Metro Manila may go down to 1.0 on Wednesday or Thursday.

“Hopefully by Wednesday or Thursday makita natin na 1.0 and I hope na mas mababa na sya sa 1.0 by Thursday,” Dr. Butch Ong said at the Laging Handa public briefing on Saturday.

(Hopefully by Wednesday or Thursday, we can see that the reproduction number would slow down to 1.0 and I hope it will even go down to below 1.0 on Thursday.)

Reproduction number is the average number of persons who may be infected by a COVID-19 positive individual. A lower reproduction number indicates there is less transmission of the virus.

Based on OCTA’s monitoring report released on Friday, the reproduction number in Metro Manila is 1.16 from April 9 to 15 as the group noted a downward trend of new COVID-19 cases in Pasay, Manila, Marikina, Taguig, and Mandaluyong.

Ong pointed out that the reproduction number also depends on the level of mobility of people in the communities. He said the reproduction number dipped faster because of the two-week enhanced community quarantine imposed in the NCR Plus, which covers Metro Manila, Cavite, Laguna, Rizal, and Bulacan.

“Noong nag-ECQ tayo ay understandably, mas mabilis bumaba ang reproduction number natin. Kaya from 1.8, 1.9, naging 1.3 and then 1.2, and then ngayon 1.16. Ngayon na nasa MECQ (modified ECQ) tayo, we expect na mas mabagal ang pagbaba ng reproduction number,” he explained.

“Maybe by mid of this week, malalaman natin kung mahihit natin ang target natin [na 1.0 reproduction number],” he added.

NCR Plus was placed under MECQ until the end of April.

The country currently has 193,476 active COVID-19 cases with additional 10,726 cases reported on Friday.

/MUF