The Philippines might reach 450,000 to 480,000 COVID-19 cases by the end of November, a University of the Philippines researcher said Tuesday.
In a report on ABS-CBN’s TeleRadyo, the OCTA Research Team had yet to make a projection as the Philippine Red Cross’s halt in government coronavirus testing due to PhilHealth’s P1.1-billion debt affected the country’s daily screening for possible infections, said one of its members, Guido David.
“Right now the rough estimate is between 450,000 and 480,000 by the end of November in the total number of cases. We can see the number of active cases are really decreasing, which is what’s important.,” David said.
He made his statement even as the University of the Philippines’ OCTA Research team had classified at least 18 localities as high-risk areas or areas for concern for COVID-19.
Its monitoring report identified the COVID-19 high-risk areas as the cities of Pasay, Makati, Pasig and Mandaluyong in the National Capital Region; Baguio City, Benguet’s Itogon, Laguna’s Calamba, Rizal’s Angono, Cainta and Taytay, Quezon’s Lucena, Isabela’s Ilagan, Batangas’ Batangas City and Cavite’s General Trias in Luzon; Iloilo’s Iloilo City and Negros Occidental’s San Carlos City in the Visayas, and Davao del Sur’s Davao City and Butuan City, Agusan dell Norte in Mindanao.
OCTA urged the government to resolve the impasse between Philippine Health Insurance Corp. and the Philippine Red Cross. In its monitoring report dated Oct. 26, OCTA said that the Red Cross stoppage of its testing operations had resulted in the reduction of reported cases in Metro Manila, Cavite, Laguna and Batangas by 40 to 50 percent.
The Philippines as of Monday reported 36,333 cases or 9.8 percent out of 371,630 total patients, according to the Health department. Some 328,258 patients recovered while 7,039 others died.
Red Cross accounted for 30 percent of the nationwide coronavirus testing capacity and 38 percent in Metro Manila, the country’s virus hot spot, according to the group.
David said the reporting of cases was broadly affected in Quezon City, Manila, Pasig, Makati, Taguig, Pasay, Paranaque, Mandaluyong, Muntinlupa, San Juan,and Pateros.
PhilHealth earlier committed to settle its debt last week, but the payment was delayed after the state-run insurance firm said it would first seek an opinion from the Department of Justice.
