‘Infections could be 6 to 15 times more than DOH data’
THE independent OCTA Research yesterday said as much as 2.44 million people in the National Capital Region (NCR) could actually be infected with coronavirus disease (COVID-19) if results from rapid antigen tests are to be included.
In a social media post, OCTA fellow Guido David said that based on their estimates, the actual number of COVID-19 cases in Metro Manila could be several times higher than the 165,000 reported by the Department of Health (DOH).
“The actual number of cases, which include asymptomatic and symptomatic cases not tested, and those tested with antigen but not reported, could be 6 to 15 times higher than the official numbers reported by DOH,” said David.
“This gives us a range of about 1.04 to 2.44 million people infected with SARS-CoV2,” he added.
David said that in coming up with the estimates, OCTA used the results of the random antigen tests conducted by the Department of Transportation (DOTr) on January 12 and 13 on railway passengers.
The random testing showed a positivity rate of 12.4 percent.
David said that assuming the NCR population of 14 million, plus the margin of error of ±5%, there is a likely prevalence range of 7.4 to 17.4 percent in Metro Manila.
Last week, Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said it is highly likely that there could be more COVID-19 cases outside of what is being reported in the daily case bulletin of the DOH as antigen test results are not included in the reporting.
PEAKING OR TESTING OVERCAPACITY?
In a related development, David said that based on the group’s monitoring, the COVID-19 case growth rate in Metro Manila has been declining.
He noted that the region’s seven-day case growth rate has dropped to 2 percent as of January 15, which is lower than the 3 percent for January 14, and 5 percent from January 13.
However, David failed to cite a reason for the declining growth rate.
“The decrease in growth rate could have two possibilities: the trend of new cases in the
NCR is close to the peak, or new cases in the NCR are limited by the testing capacity, such as the volume of testing is not sufficient given the number of new cases,” David said.
If new cases start to decrease in the NCR by next week, David said this means the region is close to peaking.
On the other hand, he said that if the number of new cases continue to hover around the same level, then it is due to testing being overcapacity.
“We will know soon enough,” said David.
Unlike in Metro Manila, a peak in cases is not yet foreseen for the rest of the Philippines.
In a radio interview, David said: “The surge is now all over the Philippines. It won’t peak in the entire Philippines even if, for instance, we say that cases have peaked in the NCR.”
The OCTA fellow noted that cases are only starting to rise in other regions.
“The surge has just started to accelerate in many parts of the country,” said David.
The DOH has reported surge in cases, outside of the capital region, in the Calabarzon, Central Luzon, Cordillera Administrative Region, Western Visayas, Eastern Visayas, and Bicol Region.
