OCTA: NCR may see 2,000 daily new COVID-19 cases next week

Metro Manila could possibly see as many as 2,000 new COVID-19 cases per day by next week, a fellow from the OCTA Research group said Friday.

“What we’re seeing right now is that we are seeing possibly 2,000 cases per day in the NCR by next week or so and this would be worrisome,” Professor Guido David said in an interview on ANC.

Currently, the capital region is averaging almost 1,100 new cases per day. OCTA said the reproduction rate of the virus in Metro Manila has climbed to 1.35

“If we get to the 2,000, it would be close to our surge capacities, meaning our contact tracing would start to break down or become less efficient and our testing would be strained,” David warned.

The OCTA Research group has led calls for a two-week “circuit breaker” lockdown to arrest the spread of the highly contagious Delta coronavirus variant. 

David pointed out that in August 2020, the modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) — the second-strictest lockdown classification — was imposed when Metro Manila was only logging around 1,800 new cases daily.

“Our MECQ lasted only two weeks, and then after that, we were fine. So it worked,” he said.

“Last March, we had a lockdown but we were at almost 5,000 cases when we had the lockdown so we waited too late to pull the trigger and that lockdown lasted seven weeks,” David added.

The government announced on Thursday that the prevailing general community quarantine with heightened restrictions over Metro Manila has been extended until August 15. 

Following the announcement, Metro Manila mayors met with the government’s inter-agency COVID-19 task force to seek tighter measures, citing the threat of the Delta variant. —KBK, GMA News