COVID-19 cases in NCR rise slightly

MANILA, Philippines — Metro Manila has recorded a slight increase in new COVID-19 cases over the past week, the first time since the peak of the most recent surge in April, the OCTA Research Group said yesterday.

Citing data from the Department of Health, OCTA said the average number of new cases in Metro Manila from May 26 to June 1 was 1,135 per day, up eight percent from the preceding week.

The reproduction number, which indicates the number of persons a positive individual can infect, also increased from 0.57 to 0.68.

Nationwide, the average number of new cases in the past week was 6,699 per day, up 37 percent from the daily average of 4,898 new cases in the preceding week, the lowest since the peak of the surge in April.

OCTA said the cause of the reversal in the downward trend is that the NCR Plus did not see a decrease in cases that would counter the upward trends seen in many local government units outside the bubble.

Several local government units in Metro Manila have also recorded spikes in new cases over the past week.

Public complacency

In an interview with “The Chiefs” on One News on Tuesday night, OCTA fellow Guido David said public complacency may be seen as a factor in the “disappearance” of the downward trend in Metro Manila.

“It’s not yet at the point that it is very alarming. Right now, the downward trend in the NCR has disappeared. We are seeing an unstable trend right now, which means that we are not certain if it’s going to go up or if it will go down soon,” he said.

“Part of the reason is that we are seeing a lot of these super spreader events happening – private pool parties, social gatherings,” he added. “What we’re getting from reports is that we’re getting community transmission in these private gatherings and if this is the case, then this is more of complacency rather than the overall quarantine restrictions.”

For areas outside NCR Plus, OCTA fellow and molecular biologist Fr. Nicanor Austriaco said the pattern suggests that new COVID variants may have been transported from the capital after the strict lockdown was lifted.

“The NCR surge which we experienced in March and April were driven by variants, and these variants were contained in the NCR for the most part because the bubble went into ECQ (enhanced community quarantine),” he said.

“What you’re seeing all over the Philippines, especially in Mindanao and certain areas in the Visayas, is that regions that had not experienced a surge are now (experiencing it)… This pattern suggests that someone brought the variants from Metro Manila to these regions to set off these outbreaks,” he added.

Impact of vaccination

During the same interview, Austriaco said the country would need to vaccinate more people before its impact on transmission is felt.

“The experience in many other countries suggests that we will not see a significant impact on transmission until the vaccination rate reaches about 30 to 40 percent of the population,” he said.

He pointed out the expected lag in the effect of the vaccination, noting that development of immunity would take six to eight weeks, depending on the type of the vaccine that will be used.