MANILA, Philippines — The daily new COVID-19 cases being logged in Metro Manila are up to some 411 per day from 264 earlier on November 24, independent pandemic monitor OCTA Research said Friday.
This is in line with the Department of Health's earlier projection of around 429 COVID-19 cases per day nationally “if our current minimum public health compliance remains the same" by December.
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In a tweet advisory, OCTA Research fellow Dr. Guido David said that the BQ5 wave is expected to be similar to the BA5 and XBB waves.
David said that Metro Manila's COVID-19 cases registered a one-week growth rate of 56 percent as the positivity rate also increased from 9.4% to 11.9%.
"This rate of increase in the positivity rate in the NCR is around the same rate of increase during the Omicron BA.5 wave from June and the XBB from September," he said.
"This projects to a December BQ.1 wave similar to the BA.5 and XBB waves."
According to OCTA Research, per data from the Department of Health, the average daily attack rate, or the number of new cases for every 100,000 people increased to 2.85.
The reproduction number — a metric used to measure the number of cases one coronavirus carrier can infect — also similarly increased from 1.11 in November 21 to 1.32 by November 28.
However, healthcare utilization in the National Capital Region remained low across the board at 28% despite registering an increase from 26% the week before.
Earlier this week, President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. said he was pleased with the performance of Department of Health officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire, adding that he sees no need to appoint a secretary of Health yet.
The DOH recorded 8,032 additional COVID-19 cases from November 21 to 27, averaging 1,147 infections a day. The figure was 0.3% higher than the number of cases logged from a week before.
The Philippines has confirmed more than 4 million COVID-19 cases, with over 64,000 deaths, since the start of the pandemic.