Cagayan, Apayao and Benguet show hike in cases
THE Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) has placed the northern provinces of Cagayan, Apayao and Benguet under modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) effective yesterday until May 23 following a rush of new COVID-19 cases.
The IATF made the announcement through Resolution No. 114-C, which it issued on May 9.
Baguio City is excluded from the new classification.
The IATF Screening and Validation Committee recommended that the three provinces be placed under strict lockdown regulations as it noted an increase in the areas’ daily reported cases.
As of Sunday, Apayao has 85 active COVID-19 cases, Benguet has 529, and Cagayan has 1,893 active cases.
The three provinces were previously under general community quarantine (GCQ).
Last Friday, the IATF placed Zamboanga City under MECQ effective immediately until May 14. Tacloban City, on the other hand, was downgraded to the least strict modified GCQ until May 31. Zamboanga City was previously under MGCQ, Tacloban City under GCQ.
At present, the National Capital Region (NCR) and the provinces of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal (NCR Plus) are under MECQ until May 14, while Santiago City, Quirino and Abra will stay under MECQ until the end of the month.
The independent OCTA Research Team over the weekend flagged the cities of Cagayan de Oro, Puerto Princesa and Bacolod as “areas of concern” also due to an increase in COVID-19 cases.
OCTA Research fellow Guido David had said that data analyzed by the group showed that for the past week, Puerto Princesa recorded a 78 percent increase in daily cases, while Cagayan de Oro reported a 75 percent spike.
Bacolod City, on the other hand, reported a 19 percent increase in cases. Calamba City in Laguna also saw a 21 percent spike in COVID-19 cases during the previous week despite it being part of the NCR Plus bubble.
GCQ?
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque yesterday said COVID-19 indicators such as attack and reproductive rates, as well as the healthcare capacity utilization rate, in the NCR Plus are pointing towards the possible downgrading of the bubble’s classification to GCQ when the current MECQ ends on Friday.
He quickly said, though, that the IATF has yet to discuss and come up with a recommendation whether to retain the MECQ or lower it by May 15. “I will not second guess the IATF but pursuant to the formula, it is possible. Again, the final decision rests with the IATF,” Roque said.
He said the IATF is expected to finalize and submit its recommendation to President Duterte in its next meeting.
Roque said as of May 9, the intensive care unit (ICU) utilization rate for Metro Manila was already at moderate level at 68 percent from 70 percent, while the rest of the country had a 62 percent utilization rate.
The isolation bed utilization in Metro Manila was at 46 percent, 51 percent of ward beds are still occupied, and 51 percent of ventilators are still being utilized.
For the rest of the country, 44 percent of the isolation beds are being utilized, along with 49 percent of ward beds and 42 percent of ventilators.
But while the OCTA Team acknowledged that there is now a downward trend in some markers being monitored, including new cases per day and hospital occupancy rate, it warned that it would still be premature for the government to lift home-stay restrictions in the NCR Plus.
OCTA Research fellows Butch Ong and Ranjit Rye and University of Santo Tomas molecular biology professor Nicanor Austriaco said the numbers are not yet low enough to allow greater mobility for residents in Metro Manila and the provinces of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna and Rizal.
Ong, a disaster response and resiliency expert, said the only encouraging figure is the reproduction number (R naught) which has been “steadily declining” to the current 1.69 from a high of 1.9 before the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) was imposed last March 29.
The R naught is the potential number of people who can get infected by a COVID-19 positive person.
“However, when we went to MECQ the decline was lower of course… understandable, because you have lesser restrictions than during the lockdown,” he explained.
Ong however noted that hospital occupancy in Metro Manila, especially the intensive care units (ICU), remains “at almost critical level” at 69 percent.
“As we know, the critical level is set at 70 percent. But all our hospital beds, isolation beds, ward beds are all holding below 70 percent. So, our hospitals are easing up a bit however the ICUs are still a little full,” he pointed out.
Likewise, a point of concern is the daily new cases which remains in the vicinity of 7,000 which is much higher than the pre-surge level of 4,000 new cases each day.
“With that, the positivity rate is still a high 15 percent. The ideal or recommended positivity rate is at around five percent. Medyo malayo pa tayo (We have a long way to go) with regard to the positivity rate,” he said.
OCTA is closely watching the daily new count in the next two weeks to see if it can be brought lower “to a much more manageable level.”
Ong said while majority of the big cities in Metro Manila have responded well under restrictions, the presence of areas of concern means the risks of another surge remains high.
“We’d like to remind everyone that the (downward) trend is still reversible. When we say ‘going down steadily,’ it doesn’t mean definite that it won’t go back up. Indications in the NCR Plus bubble in the past weeks are generally going down,” he stressed.
Rye said the longer time the restriction on mobility is in maintained, the better the indicator numbers will get.
“Yes, we are healing. Yes, we are trending in the right direction but we are still not yet there. We can understand if the government will have discussion about extending the MECQ really because we need some more time to heal,” he said.
“We also need some more time for government intervention such as contact tracing and expansion of hospital capacity apart from testing and improving our own strategy. Right now, the trends are good but we are not yet where we’re supposed to be as far as managing the crisis in our region is concerned,” he added.
One milepost he is looking at is getting all the indicators below critical level, particularly the ICU occupancy and the average daily attack rate.
Rye said these would give a better chance to sustain all the downward trend that has been achieved “at very great sacrifice to the region and the country in general.”
“What we are suggesting is caution… a calibrated and slow exit strategy. We are trying to prevent the entry of these new and more contagious variants, very specifically from India,” he added. — With Peter Tabingo
