Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong expressed hope that COVID-19 cases will go down this month after a surge in September.

"The good news is on September 21, We monitored our R-naught decrease. Before we reached 1.4, now starting September 21 it has become below one and it continues. Hopefully September 1, hopefully by October 6 or October 7 we can already see a downtrend," Magalong said during the Laging Handa public briefing on Saturday.

Magalong said COVID-19 cases recorded in Baguio City decreased slightly compared to the previous week.

"We had an average of 260, it decreased slightly but it is not too significant. We’re averaging around 260 cases a day. Last week we also had an average of eight deaths a day but it already went down to an average of seven cases a day," he said.

"The total number of active cases reached 4,400. Before we only had 200, 300, now it's 4,400. And the number of deaths is almost 500, the total number of deaths since the start of the pandemic and we are doing our best to really control this pandemic," he added.

Magalong said as part of their effort to further prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the city which he added was driven by Delta variant, the government strengthened border security.

"We're experiencing a lot of cases. We’re experiencing a surge in Baguio. In fact, the increase is not linear, it is really exponential," he said.

"For the meantime, we continue to strengthen our border control, the same with other measures and guidelines to really control the mobility and at the same time control the increase of COVID cases," he added. Robina Asido/DMS