The OCTA Research Group on Wednesday recommended an extension of the general community quarantine (GCQ) in the National Capital Region (NCR) and its neighboring province for two more weeks.

In an online media forum, OCTA Research Group fellow Professor Guido David said “the numbers are still high” despite a decline in the average of new Covid-19 cases per day was seen in NCR, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal.

“While we believe we can relax restrictions, we think we should try to retain the GCQ at this time because the cases are still significant. We want to avoid situations wherein people become very complacent because they feel that the situation has improved significantly, that there are no more cases when in fact there are still cases,” David said.

He, however, suggested the relaxation of some heightened restrictions to allow more businesses to operate at a higher capacity.

In its latest monitoring report, the group showed that NCR’s average of new Covid-19 cases per day is 1,099 over the past week.

It noted the figure is 80 percent lower compared to its peak in April when the infections surged.

The NCR’s positivity rate also has decreased to 10 percent from 25 percent in April while its reproduction number or number of persons each case can infect dropped to 0.53. (PNA)