Drop in COVID-19 cases expected by end of Holy Week -OCTA fellow

The decrease in COVID-19 cases during the period of reimposed enhanced community quarantine in Metro Manila and four adjacent provinces is expected by the end of the week, an OCTA Research group fellow said Tuesday.

“We are going to see 5 to 7 days after the beginning of the ECQ, the cases will begin to drop,” Rev. Fr. Nicanor Austriaco said in an interview on Super Radyo dzBB.

However, the closure of laboratories during the Holy Week may show an artificial decrease in the number of cases in the country.

“The problem this is Holy Week, right? We don’t know how many laboratories are closed. So, the numbers will look low. We don’t know how real the numbers are until the Holy Week is finished,” he said.

Austriaco reiterated the suggestion of medical experts to extend the implementation of ECQ for another week, warning of another surge if the government relaxes movement restrictions for just a week.

A molecular biologist, Austriaco explained that the virus has 14 days to live in a human body and the currently-imposed seven-day ECQ prevents the virus to be contracted by more people.

“If we open again, the positive people will meet the non-vaccinated people again.  We will start going up again and then one month from now, ECQ naman,” he said.

“So we want to be very careful. The government cannot not relax too early because if we relax too early, one month from now we will do this again,” said Austriaco, who is developing a Filipino-made oral COVID-19 vaccine based on a yeast system.

The Department of Health has recommended another week of ECQ over Metro Manila, Laguna, Bulacan, Cavite, Rizal amid continuous spike in COVID-10 cases.

“Extension for another week was recommended, but nothing is final and IATF works in a whole of government approach. There will be an assessment of the progress before ECQ ends,” Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire told GMA News in a text message.

The DOH earlier said a one-week ECQ would not be enough to sustain a downtrend in COVID-19 infections.

On Monday afternoon, the Philippines recorded another record-high 10,016 new cases, logging 115,495 total active cases.

The DOH said the ECQ was reimposed to stop active cases from reaching 430,000 by the end of April. --KBK, GMA News