Apart from Metro Manila, Davao City and Western Visayas could now also be considered as "epicenters" of coronavirus disease cases, the OCTA Research said on Wednesday.

In the "Laging Handa" public briefing, Guido David of OCTA Research team said the National Capital Region is still an epicenter of COVID-19 as cases are averaging almost 1,000 per day.

But he said rising cases of COVID-19 are being recorded in other parts of the country.

"It depends on the definition, perspective of the person on what the epicenter is. From our perspective, we could say it (Davao City) is also one of the epicenters now along with Western Visayas," he said.

As of June 8, Davao City reported a total of 18,653 COVID-19 cases, including the 2,683 active cases, 15,186 recoveries, and 784 deaths.

As of June 9, COVID-19 cases in Region 9 or Western Visayas rose to 52,573 with 9,517 active cases, 41,789 recoveries, and 1,251 deaths. The region includes Aklan with 558 active cases; Antique, 454 active cases; Capiz, 743 active cases; Guimaras, 140 active cases; Iloilo, 1,845 active cases; Negros Occidental, 1,930 active cases; Bacolod City, 1,578 active cases; and Iloilo City, 2,269 active cases.

Ranjit Rye, also a fellow of OCTA Research, in the same briefing said those areas with increasing COVID-19 cases have been implementing more stringent quarantine classifications and strengthened testing, tracing, and isolation.

In Davao, he said the hospitals there have increased their capacity and tapped more healthcare workers.

"The important point is a surge needs to be dealt with in a timely and appropriate responses and the best science is telling us we really need to expand ? improve the (hospital) capacity, to detect and isolate," Rye said.

He said they expect cases in those areas to continue to rise as they have not reached the peak.

"So, this surge most likely the way it is it will last at least a month and we’ll see what will happen after one month of interventions and you know, working together by the city government, the private sector there and the communities," he said.

David said that OCTA Research has projected that COVID-19 cases in Davao City will exceed the cases in Quezon City based on the trends.

"It was one of our previous reports and it's happening now because it is an upward trend. We haven't revised it yet of what can be the scale - or the level of cases based on projections but we will be revising those soon," he said.

Davao City has been placed under modified enhanced community quarantine, a stricter quarantine classification, from June 5 to 20. Celerina Monte/DMS