THE WEEKLY coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) positivity rate in the capital region Metro Manila has been decreasing, according to pandemic monitoring group OCTA.
The positivity rate in Metro Manila, which accounted for 31.5% of the country’s economic output last year, fell to 11.6% as of Dec. 23 from 14.3% as of Dec. 16, OCTA fellow Fredegusto P. David said in a Facebook Messenger chat.
“The decrease is significant and we expect the positivity rate to continue to decrease over the next weeks,” he said.
The 11.6% positivity rate was also lower than the 13.9% rate from Dec. 11 to 17, which was also a decline from the 14.4% rate as of Dec. 10.
“It looks like we have low cases for the short term,” Mr. David said.
The OCTA fellow reminded Filipinos to continue wearing face masks as much as possible.
In November, Mr. David told BusinessWorld that the country might record as many as 3,000 daily COVID-19 infections in December as Filipinos hold holiday activities.
He said daily cases in the country might significantly increase if there are threats from new subvariants.
The Department of Health had said Filipinos should learn to live with the virus in the “new normal,” noting that “variants will continue to emerge.”
As of Dec. 23 afternoon Central European Time, there have been 651.92 million COVID-19 cases globally, including 6.66 million deaths, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Globally, the number of new weekly cases reported during Dec. 12 to 18 was 3.7 million, similar to the previous week, the WHO said in a weekly report published on Dec. 21.
The number of new weekly deaths was 6% lower than in the previous week, with over 10,400 new deaths recorded, it said. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza