City Hall of Davao. Photo from Wikipedia.
Baguio City, Davao City and seven other local government units (LGUs) in the country were tagged as “hotspots of serious concern” for the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) by the University of the Philippines OCTA Research group.
The following high-risk areas in the country according to the OCTA Research group are as follows:
Metro Manila
- Makati
Rest of Luzon
- Baguio City, Benguet
- La Trinidad, Benguet
- Itogon, Benguet
- Batangas City, Batangas
- Lucena, Quezon
- Lopez, Quezon
Mindanao
- Davao City, Davao del Sur
- Pagadian, Zamboanga del Sur
No area in the Visayas was tagged as high-risk.
The basis of OCTA Research in their list of high-risk areas are high cases per day, high positivity rate, high attack rate, and/or high hospital occupancy.
“We are concerned that these LGUs may experience high hospital burden in the coming weeks that may stress their health care systems and overwhelm their medical front-liners,” the group said in its report.
Baguio City and Davao City were both highlighted in the list and tagged as “LGUs hotspots of serious concern” with the continuous spike of Covid-19 cases.
The research group advised all LGUs concerned to strengthen their efforts in testing, contact tracing, and isolation to stop the increase of the virus in their respective areas.
“Furthermore, in the high-risk LGUs, the implementation of more aggressive and effective localized lockdowns with stricter border control is urgently needed to suppress further viral transmissions,” the research team added. RJ Espartinez