OCTA: Two-week ECQ 'effective' but sustained efforts needed
MANILA, Philippines — The two-week enhanced community quarantine period hoisted over Metro Manila for two weeks to curb the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus proved to be effective but will need to be sustained moving forward, the OCTA Research Group said Sunday.
Citing figures from the Department of Health's data drop, the OCTA Research Group said that a downward trend in new cases may take shape within the coming weeks but would "require sustained efforts in pandemic management" over the next month.
Metro Manila is currently under modified enhanced community quarantine until the end of August, along with the provinces of Laguna and Bataan.
"While new cases are still increasing, the decreasing growth rate is consistent with a decreasing reproduction number. In other words, the surge has slowed down in the National Capital Region," the group's monitoring report published Sunday read.
NCR Report 08.22.21. Growth rate in NCR decreased. ECQ effective but efforts need to be sustained over the next four weeks to control the pandemic in the NCR @cnnphilippines @PTVNewsOfficial @dzbb @DZMMTeleRadyo @dzrhnews @allangatus @FEBC_ph @smninews @onenewsph @UNTVNewsRescue pic.twitter.com/pZrEz2rsrx
— Dr. Guido David (@iamguidodavid) August 22, 2021
According to OCTA, from August 15 to 21, the 3,819 average daily cases in Metro Manila was 24% higher than the seven-day average from the week before.
The Philippine National Police late Saturday night also said it rounded up more than 149,000 violators when Metro Manila was placed under enhanced community quarantine from August 6 to 20.
Police Gen. Guillermo Eleazar, PNP chief, said in a statement sent to reporters Sunday that each of the 17 cities in Metro Manila will have border control points manned and supervised by policemen.
According to the Metro Manila Development Authority, the imposition of unified curfew hours from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. across the cities and municipality of NCR shall remain in effect until further notice.
'Lockdown helped reduce growth rate of new cases'
OCTA added that NCR had the same level of infection or reproduction number at the start of April this year.
"Back then, it took two to three more weeks before new COVID-19 cases started to decrease in the NCR. This is likely the best-case scenario in the NCR," it said.
"The current rate of decrease of the reproduction number is slower than the rate of decrease in April. One possible explanation for this is the presence of the highly transmissible Delta variant. Another possible explanation is the higher mobility reported by the DOH during the recent ECQ."
Earlier Sunday, OCTA also said in an interview aired over dzMM TeleRadyo that the health department could eventually tally 20,000 COVID-19 cases in one day within the next two weeks with the virus reproduction rate yet to decline outside of the capital region.
On Sunday, the Department of Health also tallied the third-highest daily increase so far with 16,044 new cases.
This brings the total cases in the country to 1.84 million, 125,900 of whom are still classified as active infections.
— Franco Luna
- Latest
- Trending
