AFTER Davao City recorded the highest number of new COVID-10 cases, the independent OCTA Research Team yesterday warned that surges in infections reported outside the National Capital Region (NCR) will get worse in the next weeks.
Speaking at a televised public briefing, OCTA Research fellow Ranjit Rye said they project that cases in the “areas of concern” in the Visayas and Mindanao will see an uptrend for several more weeks.
“The surge is going through its motion. It has not peaked yet. We expect that cases will still increase over a week or two,” said Rye, adding: “This surge most likely will last at least a month and we’ll see what will happen after one month of interventions.”
The OCTA has identified 12 cities that are deemed as “areas of concern” due to having growth in cases or high average daily attack rate (ADAR).
Having high growth rates are Dumaguete City (195%), Koronadal City (124%), Roxas City (55%), Cotabato City (51%), and Davao City (44%).
On the other hand, found with high ADARs are the cities of Davao (11.71), Cagayan de Oro (16.18), Bacolod (19.14), Iloilo City (23.42), General Santos (18.59), Tuguegarao (38.39), Butuan (14.66), Koronadal (29.85), Dumaguete (40.86), Cotabato (15), Batangas (11.13), and Roxas (18.99).
Because of this, the OCTA fellow urged the national government to already start pouring in the needed resources by the concerned LGUs.
It has likewise identified seven provinces as “areas of concern” due to an increase in COVID-19 cases high ADARs. The provinces are Iloilo, Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental, and Leyte in the Visayas, and Davao del Sur, South Cotabato, and Bukidnon in Mindanao.
OCTA Research fellow Dr. Guido David echoed Reye’s statement and said some case surges even last for two months. “Usually, the surge lasts for at least one month in a certain locality. For a smaller LGU, sometimes it could take up to two months even with heightened restriction,” David said.
Rye appealed to the national government to already start pouring in the needed resources to the concerned LGUs. “We urge the national government to already send their equipment, personnel, and other forms of support to these places as there is that certainty or possibility of the hospital system being overwhelmed,” said Rye.
Similarly, he urged local government units to enhance their responses, particularly in contact tracing.
“An important point is a surge needs to be dealt with in a timely and appropriate response.
And the best science is telling us we need to expand and improve our capacity to detect, test, and isolate cases,” he said.
In a separate virtual media forum, DOH – Epidemiology Bureau head Dr. Alethea De Guzman said there is also a need for a strong data governance that will help facilitate efficient management of COVID-19 cases, and strengthen linkages between the national and local government units in managing cases.
“Digital innovations and solutions minimize processing time of data, minimize errors, while the electronic medical records can provide data on vaccines, and the adverse events following immunization,” said De Guzman at the online launch of the BluePrint.PH Data Newsroom Series on Wednesday.
According to De Guzman, a unified data dashboard of the COVID-19 situation will give health experts more time to interpret data and come up with timely and relevant analysis.
On Tuesday, the OCTA bulletin showed that Davao City has overtaken Quezon City as the LGU with the highest number of average daily cases in the country.
Despite this, though, the Department of Health (DOH) does not see President Duterte’s hometown as the new epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines.
“Epicenter, in relation to epidemics, are interpreted by some to refer to an area as the source of the infection. It is also meant to connote the area as a hotspot for the infection,” said Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire in a brief statement.
“Considering this, no, Davao City is not an epicenter,” she added.
Vergeire’s statement was, however, opposed by David, who said they are of the belief that Davao City may already be considered as among the “epicenters”.
“It depends on the definition or perspective of the person on what the epicenter is. From our perspective, we could say that it (Davao City) is also one of the epicenters now, along with Western Visayas,” said David.
“We would say that NCR is still averaging almost 1,000 cases per day. So, NCR Plus is still an epicenter, but we could say that there’s a corresponding increase also in these Mindanao areas,” he added.
Davao City placed number one after seeing an average of daily new cases of 213 during the period of June 1 to 7.
