Almost all provinces in the Philippines are experiencing a downward trend in new COVID-19 cases, the independent OCTA Research Group said on Sunday.
OCTA fellow Guido David, in an interview with ABS-CBN’s TeleRadyo, said only a few provinces—about five—have recently reported positive growth rates in COVID-19 cases.
“I would say almost all the provinces are now on a downward trajectory,” he said.
The average new daily COVID-19 infections dropped to 8,422 from Feb. 1 to 5, from the previous week’s 17,025, David said. He added that this could decrease to 5,000 next week, and about 1,000 to 2,000 by the end of February.
“We’re getting close to the situation that we saw in November to December last year when the number of new cases was really low,” he said.
On Saturday, the country’s positivity rate was 23.3 percent, which was the lowest in more than a month or since Jan. 1.
The number, however, is still far from the World Health Organization’s benchmark of under 5 percent, which suggests that the spread of COVID-19 in an area is under control.
The Philippines logged 8,361 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, bringing the total to 3,609,568, the Department of Health (DOH) reported.
The positivity rate was at 21.5 percent, based on 38,675 people tested on Feb. 4.
There were 126,227 active cases, of which 4,864 were asymptomatic; 116,598 were mild; 3,008 were moderate; 1,447 were severe; and 310 were critical.
There were 312 new fatalities reported Sunday, bringing the COVID-19 death toll to 54,526.
The DOH also reported 18,431 new recoveries, bringing the total recoveries to 3,428,815.
Nationwide, 42 percent of ICU beds, 39 percent of isolation beds, 37 percent of ward beds, and 22 percent of ventilators, are in use.
In Metro Manila, 35 percent of ICU beds, 31 percent of isolation beds, 33 percent of ward beds, and 20 percent of ventilators, are in use.