OCTA Research Group on Monday said daily coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases will range between 11,000 to 12,000 for the next week or so until a downward trend is seen.

OCTA fellow Guido David told the ''Laging Handa '' virtual public forum that '' the one million total cases that will be reached before the end of April is based on the projections we are seeing.''

Daily COVID-19 cases reached a record 15, 310 on April 2.

David said the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in Metro Manila and nearby provinces has a positive effect on COVID-19 cases but '' we will still be having 11, 000 to 12,000 per day for the next week or so until we see the downward trend.”

As for the reproduction rate, David said during the implementation of the general community quarantine (GCQ) bubble, it improved from 2.0 to about 1.9.

"But with the ECQ, it has improved from 1.9 to 1.6," he said.

He added the decline in the reproduction number stopped at 1.6 due to the unexpectedly large number of cases.

By the end of this week, David said their trajectory for the reproduction number is around 1.3 to 1.2.

“We will have to see how fast it decreases but right now, the trajectory is we are seeing maybe 1.3 or 1.2 by the end of this coming week. We are hoping we can... improve much better than that. There is an indicator that it may decrease faster than that,” he said.

David said growth rate in cases decreased from 60 percent to 20 percent, which can be considered as a start of improvement.

“Meaning, the number of new cases this week will be around 5, 500… only 20 percent increase from last week… In NCR (National Capital Region), it has improved and hopefully with the additional one week of ECQ, we can reduce further the reproduction number by 1 or close to one… That is what we want to see this week,” he said.

“First, we will see a decrease in the upward trend then finally it will go on a downward trend… Cases are increasing but the rate of increase is slowing down… Rate of increase has gone down but not yet on the downward trend,” he added.

On Sunday, the Department of Health (DOH) recorded 11,028 new COVID-19 cases, bringing total COVID-19 cases in the country to 795, 051. Ella Dionisio/DMS