THE coronavirus disease (COVID-19) positivity rate in the National Capital Region (NCR) has dropped to 5 percent, which is the threshold set by the World Health Organization (WHO) to indicate that the transmission of the virus is under control.
Positivity rate is the percentage of people who test positive for COVID-19 out of the overall number of those who have been tested.
In a series of social media posts, the independent OCTA Research said Metro Manila’s positivity rate dropped to 5 percent, as of January 10, from 7.9 percent on January 3.
OCTA fellow Guido David said the latest positivity rate is the lowest in the last seven months.
“The last time the positivity rate was below 5 percent was on June 22, 2022 at the outset of three COVID-19 waves in NCR,” said David.
But while the positivity rate is improving in Metro Manila, David said the opposite is happening in three Luzon provinces.
David said higher positivity rates have been recorded in Isabela (35.1% to 62.3%), Oriental Mindoro (16.3% to 38.5%), and Palawan (22.6% to 25.3%).
“(The numbers are) indicating significant levels of infection in those provinces,” said David.
Meanwhile, the Department of Health (DOH) yesterday said more than nine in every 10 sequenced samples in the country have been found to be Omicron subvariants of COVID-19.
In its latest report, the DOH said 128 out of the 137 samples sequenced by the Philippine Genome Center (PGC) from January 3 to 9 showed that they were under the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
“After the observed increase in the number and proportion of the BA.5 sublineage of Omicron since July 2022, the different Omicron subvariants under monitoring flagged by the WHO have been on a continuous uptrend starting September 2022,” noted the DOH.
In its latest batch of samples, BA.2.3.20 has the most numbers with 52, with 51 being local cases while the remaining one was a returning overseas Filipino (ROF).
There were also 28 cases of the XBB subvariant, all of which are local cases.
The DOH also said the 13 cases of the XBC subvariant are also local cases.
The sequencing also netted 10 BA.5 cases, including three classified as BF.7 and one classified as BQ.1, with six being local cases from Western Visayas and Davao Region, while the remaining four cases being ROFs.
There was also one case of BN.1, but reported under BA.2.75, that was determined as a local case from Western Visayas.
The remaining 24 samples sequenced under the Omicron variant, meanwhile, were tagged as “other Omicron subvariants”.
As for the non-Omicron subvariants, the DOH said there was only one case that was classified as Delta, while the remaining eight have no assigned lineages.
