Baguio City seeks to sustain the downward trend of its Covid-19 cases observed in the past weeks.
Mayor Benjamin Magalong said to achieve this, the city has to maintain, if not intensify the health and safety protocols it has been implementing.
City Health Officer Rowena Galpo said the city’s statistics has improved based on the two-week growth rate (TWGR) and the average daily attack rate (ADAR).
The city’s ADAR from Jan. 31 to Feb. 14 was 4.7 percent, which is below the five percent threshold set by the World Health Organization (WHO). For the TWGR, the number of cases in the last two weeks was lower by 148 cases than that of the previous two weeks.
The mayor said downtrend has also manifested in the number of case confinements in hospitals and isolation facilities in the city which considerably dropped effectively decongesting the facilities and providing a little breather for the medical front liners.
This was also shown in an ongoing University of the Philippines Baguio study of the city’s Covid-19 data, which continues to interpret and map out the city’s Covid-19 data through various statistical data analyses of the city’s confirmed cases to establish patterns and relevant information on the Covid-19 situation in the city.
In its update, the team from the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science professors led by Prof. Rizavel Addawe, which has been conducting the analyses, said the city has registered an overall positivity rate is 4.25 percent, which means that in every 100 persons to be tested, there are four persons who will have a positive result.
“As recommended by WHO, attack rates and positivity rates should remain at or below five percent for at least 14 days. A rate higher than this means more people are getting infected,” the team said.
The team added the city has recorded a total of 125,590 tests done from March 2, 2020 to Feb. 16, which represents 33.54 percent of the city’s population.
In the study, the team has been considering frequency measures such as attack rate, doubling time, growth rate and moving averages as well as threshold values set by the WHO to assess the level of community transmission and see if the city can control the disease.
According to the latest results of the study, “the seven-day moving average for the attack rate was recorded from Feb. 5 to 11, with a rate of 5.0 percent per 1,000, a value equal to the threshold value which is five percent per 1,000 individuals.”
“For the case-doubling time, or the number of days required for the number of cases to double, a higher number implies a slower doubling rate. An increase of doubling time implies that mitigation measures are being effective, while constant doubling time suggests growth of infection at a constant exponential rate,” the study noted.
For Feb. 17, the doubling time of Baguio City is 28.50 days. The city’s doubling time means the number of cases will double by approximately 29 days. There is a projection of 10,698 cumulative cases after 29 days if no interventions will occur.
As of Feb. 15, the TWGR is 4.01 percent, implying that the total number of confirmed cases in the city has risen these past two weeks by 206 cases.
“The seven-day MA from Feb. 9 to 15, 2021 is 5.34 percent. The average TWGR for the said dates is higher than the actual number of two-week growth. Trend is generally decreasing-both on the actual TWGR and its corresponding seven-day MA. However, it does not necessarily mean that cases are decreasing,” the study noted.
The seven-day MA is computed by adding the total of cases for the past seven days divided by seven days and is used to “visualize the number of new Covid-19 cases and compute the rate of change.”
The study is entitled, “Exploratory Data Analysis of Baguio City Covid-19 Cases Daily Updates,” which the UP Baguio-led research team has been recording daily Covid-19 updates in partnership with the City Health Services Office to interpret and map out the city’s Covid-19 data since March 2, through various statistical data analyses of the city’s confirmed cases with the aim of establishing patterns and relevant information on the Covid-19 situation in the city.
Apart from Corsino, the study team is composed of Jhunas Paul Viernes; Wilfredo Dizon, Jr.; Shielden Grail Domilies; Criselda Libatique; Joseph Ludwin Marigmen; Raya Elaine Gueco; R. R. Oryan; and Donnabel Tubera-Panes. – Aileen P. Refuerzo
April 30, 2024
