By Ma. Teresa Montemayor | Philippine News Agency
MANILA – The OCTA Research Group on Sunday (Oct. 17) said the number of daily COVID-19 cases may drop to 5,000 to 6,000 by the end of October.
In a television interview, OCTA Research Fellow Guido David also said that within the week, daily new cases may reach 10,000 because of the backlog.
“Temporary lang ‘yan, pero generally ‘yung trend natin pababa na (That’s temporary, but generally our case trend is declining,” he said.
David noted that the reproduction number nationwide is 0.64 and the seven-day average of cases is at 8,400.
“May mga lugar pa rin na ngayon lang nagkakaroon ng surge o pagsimula ng pagtaas ng kaso,” he added.
Citing the latest data from the Department of Health (DOH), David said the hospital utilization rate in the National Capital Region (NCR) has gone down to 47%, although the intensive care unit utilization rate remained high at 59%.
NCR’s seven-day average of COVID-19 cases is 1,681, while the positivity rate is at 10%, David said.
“This is a very good reproduction number, positivity rate has improved and considered moderate but the target is still 5%,” he said.
However, NCR’s average daily attack rate (ADAR), or the number of individuals infected per 100,000 population, is 11.87.
David noted such ADAR is “high risk but it may go down to moderate by next week”.
On Saturday (Oct. 16), NCR’s Alert Level was lowered to Level 3 from Level 4 due to the improvement of the COVID-19 case data.
READ MORE: OHCC: Alert Level System has helped in the lowering of COVID-19 cases
On Sunday at 4:00 p.m., the DOH reported 6,913 new Covid-19 infections, bringing the country’s active cases to 81,641, while 10,237 new recoveries hiked the total to 2,598,052. (PNA) – bny
READ MORE: DOH logs over 10-K new survivors; PH recovery tally now at 2.6-M
