Metro Manila’s COVID-19 growth may peak by July – OCTA

MANILA, Philippines — The number of new COVID-19 cases in the National Capital Region (NCR) may peak by the first or second week of July, the OCTA Research Group said yesterday.

OCTA fellow Guido David said the growth rate or the speed of the increase in COVID infections decreased in the past week.

“This is an indication that COVID-19 cases in the NCR could be peaking soon, maybe by first or second week of the month,” David said.

“While this trend can still change, we must continue to observe health protocols so that COVID cases will start to decrease soon,” he added.

Data from the Department of Health (DOH) showed that an average of 361 COVID infections were recorded daily in Metro Manila from June 23 to 29, up 36 percent from 262 cases posted during the previous week.

The NCR logged 262 COVID cases from June 16 to 22, which is 88 percent higher than the 140 daily infections recorded from June 9 to 15.

David clarified that a positive growth rate means that the number of COVID-19 cases is still increasing.

“It will only decrease once the surge has reached its peak and the indicator is already negative,” he said.

The DOH on Tuesday removed the growth rate as part of the indicators used to determine an area’s risk classification, with then health secretary Francisco Duque III describing it as an “alarmist” metric.

OCTA earlier projected that the number of COVID cases nationwide is unlikely to exceed 5,000 per day during the peak of the ongoing surge.

“Based on our projections, I don’t see a trajectory of 17,000 (per day) at this time. It seems unlikely the caseload will exceed 5,000 per day at the peak of this weak surge,” David said.

He was reacting to the projections made using the DOH’s diseases surveillance tool FASSSTER (Feasibility Analysis of Syndromic Surveillance Using Spatio-Temporal Epidemiological Modeler), which said that new COVID cases may reach 12,000 to 22,000 per day by the end of the month if compliance with minimum public health standards continue to decline.

Out of 781 COVID cases recorded nationwide on Tuesday, the DOH said 367 came from the NCR.