OCTA Says COVID Spike In Pasay May Be Due To New Strains Spreading
NEW COVID STRAINS IN PASAY – Recently, the Philippines confirmed the presence of “mutations of concern” in the country.
Back in January, the Department of Health detected the Philippines’ first case of the new, more contagious UK virus variant. Following this, six cases of the South African variant were found in Pasay.
Afterward, a few weeks into the detection of the cases, Pasay alone had a sudden “overhearing” spike in COVID-19 cases. As such, the OCTA research group believes that the surges in the cases may be caused by the new variants.
According to an article from ABS-CBN, one of OCTA’s analyst emphasized that:
It is important to stress the urgency of the situation as the UK and South African variants, which have already been identified in the NCR, are game-changing variants because they are more contagious and lethal and can potentially undermine our vaccination program
Furthermore, he noted that the percent of daily positive cases increased to an average of 7 percent over the past seven days. Additionally, the percentage also grew by 1 percent every week.
With this, OCTA said that Pasay has the “highest average daily new cases”. Meanwhile, other cities within the Metro merely had “marginal” increase in infections.
“Unlike past surges experienced, the current surge has spread very quickly in a short period. The increase in cases and the reproduction number indicates that the virus is already spreading exponentially in several LGUs in the region”
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