The daily positivity rate, or percentage of people that tested positive, fell from 10.8% to 10.2% based on 48,069 tests on July 13. But the rate remains to be “high” based on the metric of Covid Act Now, an initiative developed with the Harvard Health Institute which is used by OCTA as reference for its recommendations. An area needs to achieve a positivity rate of below 3% to say it has adequate testing, according to the criteria followed by OCTA.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, July 15) — Two days after registering a daily case count of below 4,000, the country recorded 5,221 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, bringing the total to 1,490,665, the Department of Health said.
The DOH case bulletin said 3.1% of the case tally, or 45,495, are active cases or currently sick patients, with at least 91.4% experiencing mild symptoms, 2.8% with severe symptoms, 2.1% without symptoms, 1.96% in moderate condition, and 1.7% in critical condition.
The death toll climbed to 26,314, or 1.77% of the COVID-19 count, after 82 more people lost their lives to the disease. The recovery tally is at 1,418,856, or 95.2% of the case total, after 4,147 more people got better.
The DOH said it reclassified 98 survivors — 52 as active cases and 46 as fatalities — after validation and deleted 13 duplicates, including ten recoveries.
The total excludes data from four laboratories that failed to submit their reports on time, the DOH said. These laboratories contributed an average of 2.4% of samples tested and 2.3% of positive individuals in the last 14 days.
OCTA said it is worried about the country’s capacity to control the highly transmissible Delta variant considering that Indonesia had a better vaccination rate and daily attack rate before it was overwhelmed by a wave of new COVID-19 infections. The world’s fourth most populous nation is now the new COVID-19 epicenter, experts had declared.
OCTA recommended that the general community quarantine status be maintained in the National Capital Region, but it did not specify whether it should be the regular GCQ or the version with added restrictions.
The national government later placed Metro Manila, Bulacan, Cavite and Rizal under the more lax GCQ without special restrictions until the end of July, despite the Health Department observing an uptick in cases in seven cities in NCR.
