The country's seven-day average of new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases is down to less than 10,000 cases for the first time since early August, independent research group OCTA said on Wednesday, Oct. 13.
OCTA Research fellow Dr. Guido said the country's weekly average COVID-19 cases is now at 9,648 cases.
This is the first time since Aug. 5-11, 2021 that the country's seven-day average decreased below 10,000 cases, David said in his update via Twitter.
He added that the 7,181 new cases reported by the Department of Health on Wednesday is the lowest recorded daily number since Aug. 3.
The continuous decline in the number of new cases is also reflected in the decreasing reproduction number in the country, which is currently at 0.68.
Reproduction number refers to the average number of secondary infections by each infected individual.
In an interview with CNN Philippines on Wednesday, David cited the "very fast" decline in the number of new infections in Metro Manila.
"The decrease is very fast. It’s decreasing by 30 percent every week. A decent decrease would be 20 percent," he said.
"I think, the level of vaccination is helping it decrease very, very quickly compared to the March-April surge when we had the Alpha, Beta variants. We didn’t have a significant level of vaccinations yet then so the decrease was slower," he explained.
David projected that the average daily cases in Metro Manila will fall below 1,000 cases by the end of October.
Metro Manila is currently averaging about 1,900 cases per day, based on OCTA's monitoring.