North, south areas see post-holiday COVID-19 surge –Octa Research

The OCTA Research Team said Friday that it had seen a surge in new COVID-19 cases in northern and southern provinces after the holiday revelries.

In its report, the OCTA Research Team said that while the National Capital Region and the nearby CALABARZON Region remained “cool” post-holiday, “a surge is occurring in many provinces in the Philippines.”

The research team said “the trend in new COVID-19 cases in NCR has leveled off,” while the week to week average number of daily cases in Metro Manila decreased to 405 from the previous week's 435.

However, the provinces of Cebu, Benguet, Leyte, Zamboanga del Sur, Mountain Province, Cagayan, and Kalinga “all had a post-holiday surge, with an increase of more than 30% in new COVID-19 cases compared to the previous week.”

In particular, Zamboanga del Sur, Kalinga, and Mountain Province all had about a 200% increase in new cases week-on-week, based on OCTA Research’s data.

“In terms of the two-week daily attack rate per 100,000, both Kalinga and Mountain Province were both above 10 per 100,000 which puts them in the high-risk classification,” it said.

“It is worth noting that the Filipina identified with the new UK B.1.1.7 variant in Hong Kong came from Cagayan,” OCTA Research noted.

It added that the northern provinces of Cagayan, Isabela, Pangasinan, Benguet, Kalinga, and Mountain Province, along with Leyte and Misamis Oriental continued to have greater than 10% positivity rates over the past week.

“Cebu and Zamboanga del Sur, while having an increase in cases, still had low attack rates and positivity rates,” the research team said. — DVM, GMA News