BY ALEXANDRIASAN JUAN
Four local government units (LGUs) were marked as high-risk areas for COVID-19 infections due to a high number of average new cases recorded in the past week, the OCTA Research Team said.
In its latest monitoring report, OCTA identified Makati City, Mankayan and Baguio City in Benguet, and Davao City as high-risk areas because of high daily caseload and attack rate, and an alarming hospital occupancy in their communities.
OCTA reported Davao City is still the top LGU with the most number of new cases per day with 107 from Dec.1 to 7 and a high attack rate of 5.5 percent in the past two weeks.
In Makati City, the daily attack rate is also slightly high at 5.6 percent, with an alarming hospital occupancy rate which was at 80 percent – way above the critical threshold of 70 percent as established by the Department of Health.
Average daily new cases in Baguio City and Mankayan significantly increased in the past week. Cases in the City of Pines doubled from 16 from Nov. 24 to 30 to 32 from Dec. 1 to 7.
This was also noted in Mankayan where new cases per day climbed from 9 to 21 during the same period. The town also has a relatively higher attack rate at 40.7 percent and a critical hospital occupancy rate at 100 percent.
“We are concerned that these LGUs may experience high hospital burden in the coming weeks that may stress their health care systems and overwhelm their medical front-liners,” the research group said.
The OCTA report also showed that the number of new cases per day in the country dropped from 1,574 from Nov. 24 to 30 to 1,396 from Dec. 1 to 7.
The country’s reproduction number slightly went down from 0.92 to 0.91 and still below the critical level of one which means local transmissions are being controlled.
However, despite the declining figures on the national level, OCTA noted that cases are more spread out throughout the country, particularly in Davao del Sur, Benguet, Isabela, Cagayan, Ilocos Norte, Pangasinan, Leyte, and Bataan.
To reverse the increase in transmissions in their communities, OCTA urged local officials, especially those of the identified high-risk areas and provinces of concern, to further intensify their efforts at testing, tracing, and isolation. (Alexandria San Juan)
