OCTA Research Group recommended on Saturday, April 10, to extend for another week the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in the National Capital Region (NCR) and four nearby provinces.
In its latest monitoring report, the independent research group said that the ECQ in the NCR-plus was working as it slowed down the surge of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases.
“In fact, the reproduction number has gone down to 1.23, and for the first time in three weeks, the NCR is experiencing negative growth in new daily cases,” OCTA said.
“Be that as it may, the reproduction number for the NCR remains above 1, meaning that significant viral transmissions continue,” it added.
The group pointed out that the average daily number of new COVID-19 cases in NCR+ remains “very high” at around 5,000 cases per day.
Researchers have also expressed concern over the hospital capacity in the region and in the bubble, which remains at critical capacity, with some hospitals have already reached their full occupancy.
With these in consideration, OCTA suggested to extend the ECQ for another week in NCR-plus “to continue to slow down the surge, decongest our hospitals and relieve the pressure on our healthcare workers.”
“OCTA believes that opening up the NCR+ prematurely would be a significant risk as it could accelerate the surge again,” experts said in their report.
“However, if ECQ extension cannot be considered for socioeconomic reasons, we are suggesting a minimum of two weeks of MECQ,” they added.
OCTA also urged the government to continue expanding testing, tracing, and isolation to accelerate the regions' exit from ECQ.
“Government should also work together with the LGUs and the private sector to accelerate the vaccination of our citizens in the NCR bubble. We need more vaccination sites and more personnel and volunteers in the vaccination centers to speed up the process,” they said.
“In particular, we need to expand the number of vaccination sites in the NCR to accommodate more individuals and reduce the possibility of super spreaders events due to crowding in vaccination centers,” they added.
Researchers suggested to the government to consider using large and open public and private structures, such as university gyms and even malls, as alternative vaccination sites.
“Moreover, there is a need to recruit more doctors and nurses to augment the existing LGU teams doing vaccination in the NCR bubble,” they said.