COVID-19 cases in the Philippines are expected to continue its surge in the coming days and may hit 25,000 cases per day next week, said independent OCTA Research group.
“We could hit 25,000 possibly by next week,” said OCTA Research fellow Guido David in an interview over CNN Philippines on Tuesday, August 31.
“But as for the rest of this week, at least we will have several days when we see fairly low numbers,” he said.
The Philippines logged its record-high tally of COVID-19 cases on Monday, August 30, when the health department reported 22,366 cases.
OCTA Research’s David said new infections may fall anywhere between 12,000 to 14,000 before the surge hits around 19,000 new cases later in the week.
On Tuesday, the country recorded 13,827 new COVID-19 cases while there were 16,759 new recoveries and 118 deaths.
Earlier, Health Undersecretary Rosario Vergeire said new cases in the national capital may soon breach the 30,000-mark, with total active cases projected about 83,000.
She said the cases may further rise to 152,000 in the capital region by the end of September.
The World Health Organization on Tuesday said the highly contagious Delta variant has become the dominant coronavirus variant in the country.
“The information we have clearly shows that now, already, the Delta variant has emerged as the dominant variant,” said Dr. Rabindra Abeyasinghe, WHO Philippines country representative.
“With this kind of transmission, with these kinds of numbers, we are in community transmission of the Delta variant,” he said in a media briefing on Tuesday.
Community transmission means there is a clustering of cases and there are no longer links among infected individuals.
Abeyasinghe said nearly 70% of samples that were subjected to genome sequencing in the latest run tested positive for the Delta variant.
The Philippines has so far recorded 1,789 Delta cases, only 38 of which were active as of August 27.
