OCTA: Davao City again tops LGUs with most daily COVID-19 cases

Davao City continues to top the list of local government units in the country with the most cases of the coronavirus logged per day, the OCTA Research Group said Sunday.

This comes amid mounting concern over local cases of the Delta variant of COVID-19, 16 of which were documented over the past week. In its latest monitoring report on COVID-19, the research group said that the city averaged 225 daily COVID-19 cases from July 11 to July 17 after posting norms of 235 cases per day in the weeks prior. The city also had 12.38 new daily cases per 100,000 population.

"We should not wait for [the variant] to enter...It will spread fast and will be hard to prevent once it starts in our region," OCTA Research fellow Guido David said in Filipino in an interview aired over dzMM's "Teleradyo."

Davao City, which is still classified as a high-risk area, also listed a critical intensive care unit utilization rate of 96%. Out of 20 localities, Davao City also posted the third-highest case fatality rate at 2.79%.

After Davao City, OCTA Research listed the localities of Quezon City, Cebu City, Iloilo City, Bacolod, Manila as the other cities with the highest daily cases.

The municipality of Mariveles in Bataan was also listed as the sole "very high risk" area, per OCTA's report. Mariveles, Lapu Lapu, and Laoag were all tagged as having a "rapid increase in new cases."

Earlier in June, Davao City Mayor Sara DuterteCarpio defended the spike in coronavirus cases in the city as being a result of increased testing efforts for the pathogen.

At the time, Davao City, the hometown of the chief executive, was eventually tagged by experts as an area of concern outside of Metro Manila.

To date, health authorities have recorded 1.5 million coronavirus infections in the Philippines, 47,190 of whom remain classified as active cases.