OCTA Research: New COVID cases in most of PH back to pre-Delta surge level

Screengrab from Pandesal Forum-Kamuning Bakery Cafe Facebook Live

MANILA, Philippines — The number of new COVID-19 cases in Metro Manila and most of the country is now back to the pre-Delta variant surge level, independent pandemic monitor OCTA Research said Thursday.

“If we look at NCR (National Capital Region), if we look at the seven-day average as of November 3, it’s actually already as low as before the [surge] started in July,” OCTA Research fellow Guido David said at the weekly Pandesal Forum.

“We are averaging about 600 cases per day, so essentially we have reversed the Delta surge already in the NCR. We are back to where we were before the surge in July,” he added.

Meanwhile, the number of new COVID cases at the national level is similar to the figures logged in March, according to David.

“For the entire country, we are actually back in… it’s like we reversed back to March of this year in terms of the cases, but for NCR, we reversed it back to around June or July,” he said.

He noted that COVID cases in “the majority of the country have already reversed” back to the pre-surge level.

Based on OCTA Research’s latest data, the average daily attack rate or ADAR of the new coronavirus disease in Metro Manila was 4.45 per 100,000 individuals. This means that an average of four people for every 100,000 individuals in the region gets infected with the virus in one day.

The reproduction number in Metro Manila, on the other hand, was at 0.43, according to the group’s latest data. Reproduction number is the average number of people being infected by one COVID-positive person.

Meanwhile, the region’s healthcare utilization was at 29 percent while intensive care utilization was at 39 percent, the OCTA Research added. The positivity rate, or the number of individuals testing positive for the virus among all those tested, was at four percent based on the group’s latest data.

Overall, the pandemic monitor said Metro Manila is classified as low-risk for a COVID-19 outbreak although David noted that few areas in the country still register a high number of COVID-19 cases even if the rate of infection in those areas was already on a downward trend.

“I think we are in for a good December this holiday,” David said.

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