ILOILO City – Due to an increased number in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases per day and an alarming hospital occupancy rate in the past weeks, this metropolis has been identified by the OCTA Research Group, along with other eight local governments units (LGUs), as “high-risk” for COVID-19 infections.
“We are concerned that these LGUs may experience high hospital burden in the coming weeks that may stress their healthcare systems and overwhelm their medical frontliners,” the OCTA said.
Based on the group’s latest monitoring report released Wednesday, the eight other LGUs were the cities of Makati and Malabon in Metro Manila, Baguio City, the towns of Itogon and Tuba in Benguet, Lucena City in Quezon, Catarman town in Northern Samar, and Pagadian City in Zamboanga del Sur.
In classifying the nine LGUs, the group cited the number of cases recorded daily, the COVID-19 attack rate and the hospital occupancy in the areas as bases.
The OCTA team is composed of University of the Philippines faculty members and alumni with contributors from the University of Santo Tomas and Providence College in the Unites States.
They are an independent and interdisciplinary research group studying the COVID-19 outbreak in the Philippines.
The group explained that the attack rate is the number of new cases per day relative to population.
For example, a daily attack rate of five percent per 1000 means that there are five new cases per 100,000 of population per day.
“A higher attack rate means more people are getting infected,” it added.
With this, the research team advised the identified high-risk LGUs to further intensify testing, contact tracing and isolation efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19 in their communities.
“Furthermore, in the identified high-risk LGUs, the implementation of more aggressive and effective localized lockdowns with stricter border controls is urgently needed to suppress further viral transmissions,” they said.
OCTA research group further noted that the number of COVID-19 cases in the National Capital Region continued to decrease even with the resumption of the testing operations of the Philippine Red Cross.
“We urge the national and the local governments to strictly monitor and enforce compliance with minimum health standards such as physical distancing, the wearing of facemasks and face shields, and proper hygiene to reverse the increase in transmissions at the community level,” it added.
The group advised LGUs to improve their evacuation strategies and plans to prevent transmission during disasters, saying that more typhoons are set to visit the country.
The City Epidemiology Surveillance Unit (CESU) of the Iloilo City Health Office (CHO) recently reported that cases of COVID-19 have gone down.
The metropolis recorded only nine cases on Nov. 3.
The average daily case was also cut to half – 23 from 46 in October. The average daily case decreased to 20 this month.
CESU-CHO also recorded some 300 active cases by end of October./PN
