Independent research group OCTA flagged four cities as "areas of concern" due to the increasing number of new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases, as well as high incidence rate and hospital care utilization rate, during the June 25-July 1 period.
OCTA identified Davao City, Iloilo City, Baguio City, and San Fernando City, La Union as "areas of concern" in its monitoring report released on Friday, July 2.
It noted that new cases continued to escalate in Davao City which had the highest daily average in the country and a reproduction number of 1.41.
Reproduction number is the average number of secondary infections by each infected individual.
Iloilo City also had an increase in new cases after a period of decline, while its hospital bed and intensive care unit (ICU) occupancy remained high, OCTA said.
Likewise, Baguio City had an increase in new cases while hospital bed and ICU utilization increased past 70 percent.
San Fernando City had a spike in new COVID-19 cases, which was 148 percent higher than the previous week, while its incidence increased to nearly 30 cases per day per 100,000 population.
Laguna, which is part of the NCR Plus bubble, had three local government units (LGUs) in the list of areas with increasing cases or high positivity rates.
These are Calamba, San Pablo and Santa Rosa.
However, OCTA said that only San Pablo is a slight concern due to its high incidence and high ICU utilization rate.
"The trends slowed down or saw a decline in many LGUs in Mindanao and Visayas, including Cagayan de Oro, Tagum, Zamboanga City, Tacloban, Bacolod, and Butuan," OCTA said.