PH may have only 1K new COVID cases per day by Christmas — OCTA

THE BREAK NEEDED BY ALL Filipinos — like this early “parol” maker in Quiapo, Manila—may be given a break from the tight quarantine rules for the Christmas holidays if the number of COVID-19 cases continues to drop, according to the Department of Health. — MARIANNE BERMUDEZ

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines may have only around 1,000 new COVID-19 cases per day by Christmas as the country continues to see a decline in the number of new coronavirus infections, OCTA Research fellow Guido David said Friday.

According to David, the country’s new COVID-19 infections may not reach 10,000 to 20,000 again like the cases logged in September if the public sector would take care to prevent such a recurrence.

“Kailangan pa rin natin mag-ingat kasi pwede pa rin magkaroon ng spikes ng cases, mga clustering, local outbreaks, pero in general tingin natin hindi na tayo babalik sa 10,000 or 20,000 cases per day. Kaya nakikita natin na tuloy tuloy. Sana hanggang pasko baka nasa 2,000, or even 1,000 cases per day sa buong Pilipinas, kaya ‘yun sa pasko,” he told ABS-CBN’s Teleradyo.

(We still need to be careful because we may still have clustering of cases or local outbreaks, but in general we believe that we will not have 10,000 to 20,000 cases per day. We hope we will reach just 2,000 new daily cases in Christmas, and in fact even 1,000 new cases per day in the entire country is achievable by Christmas time.)

According to David, the country’s seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases is currently at 4,700.

However, David noted that cases in Dumaguete City and Lubang town in Occidental Mindoro are still increasing. He added that Zamboanga City and La Trinidad, Benguet are still at high risk but their trend of cases is already going down.

The country still has 49,835 active cases of COVID-19, including the 3,694 new cases recorded on Thursday.

EDV