Filtered By: Topstories
News

NCR likely under Alert Level 1 by December if trend holds —OCTA


The de-escalation of the National Capital Region to Alert Level 1 status by December will be probable if the decreasing COVID-19 trend continues to hold, the OCTA Research group said Thursday.

"So far, if the trend holds, NCR will probably deescalate to Level 1 by December, and hopefully the trend will hold," OCTA Research fellow Professor Ranjit Rye said in a mix of Filipino and English at the Laging Handa briefing.

"We're projecting things over the next few weeks will be more predictable and calculable as far as COVID 19 is concerned. We see a downward trending sustained here in the NCR," Rye added.

However, Rye pointed out that their projections are based on the assumptions that the public will continually observe minimum public health standards, no contagious variant was detected, and that the government is boosting its vaccination rollout.

Rye said they were able to verify the three-digit COVID-19 cases recorded in one day through their local government unit (LGU) partners, adding that the figures were not artificial.

"Nakikita rin namin, nava-validate rin namin ang datos na nakukuha sa Department of Health, and klaro naman, hindi ito artificial. Ma-observe rin natin sa mga ospital talagang kumonti ang mga kaso at na-free up ang ating ICU capacity," Rye said.

(We also see and validate the data we obtain from the Department of Health, and it is clear that it is not artificial. We can also observe in hospitals that cases have actually dropped and our ICU capacity has been freed up.)

"We see a positive outlook not just in the NCR but the whole country in the next month or so, that is what we see, assuming that the trend holds," he added.

Rye said an uptick may be possible in December due to an increase in mobility following the de-escalation of NCR to Alert Level 2.

Since we expect that many Filipinos, especially in NCR, are now vaccinated, we won't see the surges that we saw over the last few months in NCR… Hopefully there will be no more massive regional lockdowns. That’s the outlook that we see." —LBG, GMA News

LOADING CONTENT