MANILA – The Philippines may see 40,000 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases by end of June, researchers and scientists of the University of the Philippines said.
Professor Guido David of UP Institute of Mathematics bared this in a virtual press conference hosted by the Department of Health, saying the projection was based on current trends on the COVID-19 data in the country.
“Right now, ‘yung projection namin, ginamit lang namin ‘yung R0 (pronounced R-naught) na 1.2 sa Philippines. So ‘yung projection actually is nasa 40,000 cases by June 30,” said David.
According to David, the reproduction number (R0) is used to measure the transmission potential of a disease. It is the average number of secondary infections produced by a typical case of an infection.
“In-assume lang namin na 1.2. Kung bumaba ‘yung R0 – which is bumababa pa – kasi ‘yung NCR (National Capital Region) less than 1 ‘yung R0 so pag i-project natin ‘yan, mas konti naman ‘yung cases,” David said.
Even with the projection, David has said that a lot of cities in the country have been “winning the war” against the pandemic with the “main battle ground” only remains in Metro Manila and Cebu.
“Kapag may forecast kami, hindi naman namin sinasabi na ‘yan talaga ang lalabas. Nakadepend siya sa factors and nakadepend siya sa data na pinoprovide ng DOH (Department of Health),” he said.
Based on the latest number of COVID-19 cases from the DOH, there were 23,732 total cases in the country – 4,895 of whom have recovered and 1,027 died of the disease./PN
