An infectious disease expert agreed on Monday, Sept. 26 that daily Covid-19 cases in the National Capital Region (NCR) might go up to 2,000 as projected by the OCTA Research group.

In an interview on Laging Handa, Dr. Rontgene Solante said that patients experiencing symptoms mainly belong to the same family, most of which are positive from antigen tests.

"So, iyong nakikita sa OCTA are the RT-PCR positive. So, it could be more than the 2,000 that we would expect (What OCTA is seeing are those who tested positive through RT-PCR. It can be more than the 2,000 cases that we would expect)," he said.

Independent OCTA Research group’s data showed that Metro Manila’s positivity rate jumped from 14.3 percent on Sept. 14 to 17.5 percent as of Wednesday, Sept. 21. This number is way higher than the “5 percent positivity rate benchmark” set by the World Health Organization (WHO) to prevent the occurence of another surge.

He cited high mobility as well as people no longer following health protocols such as wearing face masks in attending gatherings as the main reason behind the continued increase of Covid-19 cases.

Based on the demographics, Solante explained that most of those getting admitted to the hospital belong to the elderly population and are aged 65 and above as well as those who are unvaccinated. Yet there are also those who have been vaccinated but have multiple comorbidities.

He also stated that there are a lot of factors contributing to the increasing number of Covid-19 cases. He mentioned that currently, the main driver now in the increase of Covid-19 cases is the Omicron subvariant BA.5.

Solante added that the Covid-19 Omicron subvariant or variant of concern BA.5 can only cause mild symptoms, generally, in most of the healthy and the general population.

"And alam naman natin na itong BA.5 na maski bakunado ka, madadaanan ka pa rin nito, mas lalo na iyong walang bakuna; at mataas pa rin ang walang bakuna sa population natin, hindi pa nagpa-booster, mataas pa rin. So, ito iyong mga population na talagang mataas ang rate na magka-impeksiyon (We all know that with BA.5, even though you're vaccinated, you can still get infected, especially those without vaccines and currently, the country's vaccination rate remains low, and those without booster shots. So this is the population that has high rate of infection)," he explained.

Solante said hospitals are not expected to be filled up because BA.5 can only cause mild disease or mild type of Covid-19 among the general population and the younger population.