The OCTA Research Group on Sunday said the growth of Covid-19 cases in the National Capital Region (NCR) has decreased to 2 percent based on the seven-day moving average of new infections.

NCR’s growth rate was 3 percent on Saturday.

“The decrease in growth rate could have two possibilities – the trend of the new cases in NCR is close to the peak, or new cases in the NCR are limited by testing capacity, i.e., the volume of testing is not sufficient given the new number of cases,” OCTA Research Group member Dr. Guido David posted on his Twitter account @iamguidodavid.

He explained that new cases in the region are close to peak if the number of fresh infections start to decrease by next week.

If the region has limited testing capacity, David said the number of new cases “will continue to hover around the same level until the downward trend happens.

The total number of new reported cases in the NCR from January 1 to 14 is about 165,000, based on Department of Health (DOH) data.

“This means that the actual number of cases, which include asymptomatic and symptomatic cases not tested and those tested with antigen but not reported, could be 6 to 15 times higher than official numbers reported by DOH, within a 95-percent confidence interval,” he said.

On Saturday, NCR had 18,422 new cases.

In Calabarzon (9,401 new cases), Cavite had the most number of new infections at 2,988 followed by Rizal with 2,546, Laguna 2,473, Batangas 1,079, and Quezon 315, according to DOH data shared by David. (PNA)

(Photo credit to: Rappler)