OCTA: Makati, Taguig ‘high risk’ for COVID-19

MANILA, Philippines — The OCTA Research group has placed the cities of Makati and Taguig under “high risk” classification due to rising number of COVID-19 cases.

Using data from the Department of Health, OCTA said Makati recorded an average of 74 daily new COVID-19 cases from July 14 to 20, up from 55 in the preceding week.

Taguig logged an average of 60 COVID-19 cases per day, up from 49.

Both cities posted high reproduction rate, which measures the number of persons a COVID-positive individual can infect, at 1.24 and 1.16, respectively.

Makati recorded a “high” incidence rate of 11.84 daily COVID cases per 100,000 people. Taguig registered a “very high” intensive care unit utilization (ICU) rate of 92 percent.

According to OCTA, the city of Manila posted a significant increase in daily COVID-19 cases, from an average of 82 cases to 109 in the past week. The city’s reproduction rate is also high at 1.21.

Manila still remains under “moderate” risk given that the other indicators are still classified as “moderate” or “low.”

Quezon City remains under moderate risk, although it recorded an increase in daily COVID cases from an average of 118 cases to 144 in the past seven days.

Metro Manila recorded a spike in COVID-19 cases, but OCTA said this is not yet a cause for alarm “as it is still too early to determine if this will continue to an increasing trend.”

From July 14 to 20, the National Capital Region posted an average of 744 cases of COVID-19 per day, up from 629 in the previous week. The NCR’s reproduction number jumped to above 1.0 this week, the first time since April when the NCR Plus was placed under the strictest enhanced community quarantine.

Aside from Makati and Taguig, nine other local government units outside Metro Manila were considered as high risk based on indicators used by the research group. These are Bacolod, Baguio, Cagayan de Oro, Cebu City, Davao City, General Santos, Iloilo City, General Santos, Laoag and Mariveles in Bataan.