As the government maintained the general community quarantine (GCQ) status  in Metro Manila and other provinces for the next month, an independent research group has expressed concern over the increasing number of new COVID-19 cases in the National Capital Region (NCR) in recent days.

Dr. Guido David of the OCTA Research Group said they observed a surge in the number of new COVID-19 cases in the NCR, with its rate of increase similar to those monitored in Cebu City and in the Mountain Province in the recent weeks.

“This is actually very concerning,” David said in a press briefing Saturday, Feb. 27.

“For the past two day we’ve been getting 900 cases per day in  Metro Manila and the last time that we’re getting 900 cases per day in Metro Manila was back in October last year,” he added.

David said currently, the reproduction number of the metropolis pegs at 1.4.

“If the number of cases continues to increase, we will have 2,500 or more cases and that is concerning because these are the levels we saw back in August,” he said.

The number of new infections reported daily in Metro Manila significantly went up during the months of July and August last year.

On Saturday, President Duterte maintained the GCQ status in Metro Manila for the month of March.

This decision sits well with David, saying that it would be difficult to curb the surge of infection in the metropolis if the country is downgraded  to less strict modified general community quarantine (MGCQ).

“Right now we think that in hindsight, it’s a good decision that we did not downgrade yet to MGCQ in Metro Manila because of the surge in cases. And if we did downgrade to MGCQ, it would be harder for us to curb the spread of infections,” he said.

David said one of the possible reasons that led to the recent surge of infections in the metropolis is that people might have let their guard down after celebrating the holidays.

But, he also noted that the recent surge in cases may be attributed to the emergence of new and more infectious variant of COVID-19, which was first detected in the United Kingdom, and has now infected over 60 people in the country.

“Why did we say that, because the rate of spread is very fast. In fact this is faster than the spread rate in July. This is similar to the rate of infection we saw in Cebu City and in Mountain Province,” he said.

“We are not saying that there is definitely a variant . The scientific evidence that would determine if a COVID-19 variant is present will come from the conduct of a genome sequencing,” he added.

In January, the Department of Health (DOH) confirmed the local transmission of the UK variant of COVID-19 in Bontoc, Mountain Province.

Metro Manila and Cebu are still considered as “areas of concern” in the country, David said.

In its latest bulletin issued last Feb. 25, OCTA said there remains to be indications of a continuous rising trend in the number of new cases in the metropolis.