The COVID-19 positivity rate in the National Capital Region (NCR) maintained its upward movement in the past week, posting a 7.2 percent last weekend, based on data by independent monitoring group OCTA Research on Monday.
OCTA Research fellow Dr. Guido David said the percentage of people who were found positive for COVID-19 in NCR among the total number of individuals tested there slightly went up from 6.5 percent on April 8, to 7.2 percent on April 15.
Official figures suggested the coronavirus has infected at least 4.08 million and killed 66,441 since it swept ashore in March 2020.
“High” positivity rates were also recorded in three provinces: Misamis Oriental (22.7 percent), Camarines Sur (21.1 percent), and Rizal (20.2 percent).
There was also an increase observed in Benguet, Bulacan, Cavite, Cebu, Laguna, Pampanga, Pangasinan, and Zamboanga del Sur.
The country’s daily average of new COVID-19 cases also increased by 23 percent from April 10 to 16, the Department of Health reported Monday.
The DOH posted 341 daily infections from 278 recorded between April 3 to 9.
Overall, there were 2,386 new cases and 20 verified deaths in the recent week.
During the same week, the tally of severe and critical infections went down to 356 from the previous 378.
Only 12.3 percent or 234 out of the 1,900 intensive care unit (ICU) beds are in use, while 17.4 percent or 2,929 of 16,791 non-ICU beds are utilized.
At least 78,443,972 or 100.4 percent of the country’s target population (78,100,578) have been vaccinated against COVID-19, including 82.16 percent of 8,721,357 senior citizens, as of March 19.
A total of 23,811,248 have received booster shots out of the fully vaccinated population.
To date, the country has logged over 4.08 million coronavirus cases and more than 66,420 fatalities.
The Philippines on Sunday logged 443 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the active tally to 9,569.
NCR remained to be the region with the newest COVID-19 cases in the last two weeks with 1,344 cases.
It was followed by Calabarzon with 493, Davao Region with 446, Northern Mindanao with 301, and BARMM with 232.