THE coronavirus disease (COVID-19) positivity rate in the National Capital Region (NCR) has dropped below 10 percent, the independent OCTA Research said yesterday.
OCTA fellow Guido David, in a social media post, said the “moderate” positivity rate in Metro Manila dropped to 7.3 percent from last week’s 11.6 percent.
David also said that based on their latest monitoring, the positivity rates in 16 provinces have also decreased between June 10 and 17.
Seeing their “high” positivity rates decline are Bataan (32.2% to 24.2%), Camarines Sur (33.9% to 23.3%), Isabela (40.6% to 29.2%), and Pampanga (29.9% to 21.2%).
OCTA also said reported a drop in the moderate positivity rates in the provinces of Batangas (16.2% to 10.8%), Benguet (16.1% to 13.2%), Bulacan (12.5% to 7.6%), Cagayan (28.8% to 13.8%), Cavite (16.3% to 10.6%), La Union (19.5% to 13.9%), Laguna (18.1% to 10.6%), Oriental Mindoro (40.3% to 17.7%), Quezon (24.1% to 12.4%), Rizal (12.5% to 8.8%), Tarlac (23.5% to 16.6%), and Zambales (17.5% to 12.3%).
However, two Luzon provinces saw their positivity rates climb in the past week. These are Palawan, from 17.9 percent to 19.5 percent; and Pangasinan, from 19.4 percent to 21.4 percent.
Positivity rate is the percentage of people who test positive for the virus out of the overall number of those who have been tested.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has set the threshold for positivity rate for COVID-19 at 5 percent, which means the transmission is under control.
The Department of Health (DOH) yesterday reported that the average daily COVID-19 cases in the Philippines have gone down to 612 cases for the period of June 12 to 18, which is 35 percent lower than cases reported from June 5 to 11, or 4,281 infections the last seven days.
In its June 12 Case Bulletin, the DOH said the country had an average of 947 cases daily for the period of June 5 to 11.
The DOH reported that there were 57 additional severe and critical cases during the past week, while one death was reported.
It said there are currently 477 severe and critical cases in the country, as of June 18, of which 346 are occupying ICU beds or 16.6 percent of the 2,080 total nationwide.
On the other hand, there are 3,434 patients occupying COVID-19 beds, or 19.5 percent of the 17,647 total COVID-19 beds allocated nationwide.
FE.1 OMICRON SUBLINEAGE
Also yesterday, the latest COVID-19 Biosurveillance Report of the DOH reported the detection of the first FE.1 sublineage case of COVID-19 in the country even as over 2,000 additional cases of the Omicron variant have been detected anew.
The DOH report indicated the lone case of the FE.1 sublineage was sequenced in the May 29 to June 12, 2023 batch of samples.
Also known as XBB.1.18.1.1, the FE.1 is an XBB sublineage that was added to the list of variants under monitoring last June 1, 2023.
The DOH said the FE.1 was initially flagged for its increasing global prevalence and has been detected in 35 countries or jurisdictions across six continents.
“However, currently available evidence for the variant does not suggest any differences in disease severity and/or clinical manifestations compared to the original Omicron variant,” said the DOH.
According to the DOH report, there were 2,216 out of the 2,340 samples that have been classified as under Omicron variant.
Aside from the FE.1 case, the report tagged 1,940 samples as XBB (including 374 XBB.1.5 cases, 199 XBB.1.16 cases, 747 XBB.1.9.1 cases, 104 XBB.1.9.2 cases, and 198 XBB.2.3 cases), and were detected in all regions except Eastern Visayas.
“From May 2023 onwards, XBB and its sublineages were the most detected variant, comprising 88.19% of samples sequenced with assigned lineage,” said the DOH.
A total of 206 samples, meanwhile, were tagged as BA.2.3.20, and were detected in all regions except Calabarzon, Eastern Visayas, Northern Mindanao, and Bangsamoro.
The genome sequencing also detected 34 cases of XBC coming from Ilocos Region, Davao Region, and Soccsksargen.
There were also six samples classified as BA.2.75 (including 5 CH.1.1 cases) that were found in Calabarzon, Cordillera Administrative Region, and Metro Manila.
Four cases of BA.5 (including two BQ.1 cases) have also been detected in Central Luzon, Calabarzon, and Soccsksargen.
There were also 26 samples tagged as being “other Omicron sublineages”.
The DOH, on the other hand, said 124 samples had no assigned lineages.
