Covid-19 cases in the National Capital Region (NCR) and its surrounding areas have started to “plateau” after the first week of enhanced community quarantine (ECQ), according to health experts.
In an interview with PTV on Monday, OCTA Research Group member Guido David said they observed the reproduction rate for Covid-19 started to decline to 1.6 from 1.9 before the lockdown in NCR plus, which includes Metro Manila, Bulacan, Rizal, Cavite, and Laguna.
The reproduction rate is average number of people, who can be infected by those who are carrying a certain virus.
“This means the trend [of increase of daily cases] is now slowing down,” David said.
Butch Ong, another member of the Octa Research Group, said they hope the trend will continue this week after the government extended the ECQ from April 5 to 11, 2021.
Initially, the ECQ in NCR plus was supposed to last from March 29 to April 4, 2021.
President Rodrigo R. Duterte opted to prolong the ECQ upon the recommendation of the Department of Health (DOH) and the Octa Research.
Possible scenarios
David said they hope the second week of ECQ in NCR plus, which is currently the epicenter of Covid-19 cases in the country, will reduce the reproduction rate for said virus to around 1.
“Right now ang trajectory is we’re seeing maybe 1.3 or 1.2 by the end of this coming week. So we’re hoping it will improve much better than that; there are indicators showing that it may decrease faster than that but the conservative estimate – from 1.2 to 1.3,” David said.
OCTA research said this trend will help decongest the hospitals and quarantine facilities in NCR plus.
DOH said it may recommend to lower the community quarantine classification in NCR plus next week if the health care utilization in the area will drop to 60 percent to its current range of 70 to 80 percent.
To boost the reduction of cases this week, the government will be intensifying its prevent, detect, isolate, treat, and reintegrate (PDITR) strategy for Covid-19 patients.
Additional capabilities
The strategy includes increasing the number of Covid-19 dedicated hospitals and quarantine facilities as well as the governments contact tracing capabilities.
On Monday, the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) announced it will hire 12,000 workers through its Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers (TUPAD) program to become contact tracers.
Of the said beneficiaries, 7,000 will be deployed in the Laguna, Cavite, Bulacan, and Rizal, while the remaining 5,000 will be sent to NCR.
Labor Assistant Secretary Dominuque Tutay said their TUPAD beneficiaries will likely be tapped to become encoders in the contact tracing operations centers of local government units (LGU).
Image credits: AP/Aaron Favila