THE Department of Health (DOH) yesterday said the average daily coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases in the Philippines continued to dip and is now at an average of 119 cases per day for the period of February 20 to 26.
The DOH’s weekly COVID-19 case bulletin showed 832 cases all over the country, which is a seven percent drop from the cases reported from February 13 to 19, which was at 128 cases daily.
The bulletin said there were 78 deaths but no additional severe and critical cases during the past week.
The DOH said there are currently 370 severe and critical cases in the country, as of February 26, of which 291 are occupying ICU beds.
The number of occupied ICU beds account for 13.5 percent of the 2,163 total nationwide.
On the other hand, the DOH said 3,191 patients are confined in different hospitals nationwide, which is 17.9 percent of the 17,830 COVID-19 beds allocated nationwide.
‘MODERATE’ LEVEL
Meanwhile, the independent OCTA Research group said the positivity rates in two provinces in the country increased in the past week, and they are now classified to be at “moderate” level.
The latest OCTA data showed South Cotabato (13%) and Misamis Oriental (6.5%) now have moderate level positivity rates, as of February 25.
“Significant increase in positivity rate in South Cotabato, from 2.8% to 13%, and in Misamis Oriental, from 4.3% to 6.5%,” said OCTA fellow Guido David in a social media post.
On the other hand, OCTA data showed that the positivity rates in the National Capital Region (NCR) and 10 other provinces continue to have “low” positivity rates.
Aside from Metro Manila, which has a positivity rate of 1.6%, the other areas are Davao del Sur (4.2%), Cavite (2.1%), Batangas (1.5%), Pampanga (1.5%), Bulacan (1.3%), Iloilo (1.1%), Laguna (1.1%), and Pangasinan (1.1%).
Having below 1 percent positivity rates are Cebu (0.8%) and Negros Occidental (0.8%).
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.
Positivity rate is the percentage of people, who test positive for the virus, out of the overall number of those who have been tested.
