MANILA, Philippines — The OCTA Research on Tuesday tagged six local government units (LGUs) outside Metro Manila as high risk for COVID-19.
The independent research group said the high-risk areas are Davao City, Bacolod, Iloilo City, General Santos, Baguio City, and Tagum.
OCTA Research now uses the risk levels of COVID Act Now that was developed with the Harvard Global Health Institute, Apple, Microsoft, Bloomberg, and organizations.
The risk levels under this system are color coded, with the low risk category tagged as green, medium or moderate as yellow, high as amber, and very high as red.
Four indicators are used in categorizing the risk level per area: infection, or the current reproduction number; incidence, or the seven-day average of new cases per 100,000 people and is also called average daily attack rate (ADAR); ICU utilization rate, and; testing or the seven-day average of positivity rate.
Table from OCTA
According to OCTA Research, Davao City continues to have the highest new cases in the country based on data from June 29 to July 5. The city logged an average of 303 daily new cases during the said period.
Following Davao City is Bacolod with 113 average daily new cases, Iloilo City with 111, General Santos with 76, Baguio City with 68, and Tagum with 47.
The ICU utilization rate has been tagged “red” for Iloilo City with 94 percent occupancy and Davao City with 90 percent occupancy.
Meanwhile, testing is rated as “red” for General Santos with 34 percent positivity rate, Bacolod City with 24 percent, and Tagum with 22 percent. Butuan, though not among the high-risk areas, recorded 23 percent ICU utilization.
Metro Manila, on the other hand, is rated yellow or moderate risk, with an average of 644 new COVID-19 cases per day, five percent lower than the average in the previous week.
OCTA said the Philippines is also rated yellow with an average of 5,451 new cases, three percent lower than the previous week’s average.
Under the metrics of the Department of Health (DOH), both Metro Manila and the country are categorized as low risk. The DOH uses ADAR and two-week growth rate in categorizing risk levels.
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