The nationwide COVID-19 positivity rate increased to 12.9 percent on Wednesday, the independent monitoring group OCTA Research said.
This was up from 11.7 percent on April 25, said OCTA Research fellow Guido David. Earlier, the Department of Health said it registered 506 new cases on Wednesday, bringing the overall tally to more than 4 million since the pandemic started.
The positivity rate—or percentage of people who test positive in relation to the total number of people tested—also rose in Metro Manila to 12.3 percent from 8.1 percent in the previous week. OCTA said the rising cases may be due to the COVID-19 Omicron subvariant XBB.1.16, dubbed as “Arcturus,” spreading in the country.
The DOH announced the detection of the first case of Arcturus in Iloilo province on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the WHO said Wednesday that COVID-19 deaths had dropped by 95 percent since the start of the year but warned that the virus was still on the move.
“We’re very encouraged by the sustained decline in reported deathsfrom COVID-19, which have dropped 95 percent since the beginning of this year,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference.
“However, some countries are seeing increases, and over the past four weeks, 14,000 people lost their lives to this disease.
“And, as the emergence of the new XBB.1.16 variant illustrates, the virus is still changing, and is still capable of causing new waves of disease and death.”
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19, said XBB sub-lineages were now dominant worldwide.
They have an increase in growth advantage and are also showing immuneescape, meaning people can be reinfected despite having been vaccinated or previously infected.
She called for increased surveillance through testing “so that we can monitor the virus itself and understand what each of these mutations means.”
That knowledge could feed into vaccine composition and inform decisions on handling the virus, she said.
Tedros reiterated that the WHO remained hopeful of declaring an end toCOVID-19 as a public health emergency of international concern, with the committee that advises him on the status due to convene next month for its regular quarterly meeting.
“But this virus is here to stay, and all countries will need to learn to manage it alongside other infectious diseases,” he added.
Tedros meanwhile said that an estimated one in 10 infections resulted in Long COVID, suggesting that hundreds of millions of people would need longer-term care.
The WHO chief also noted how the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted vaccination programs, with an estimated 67 million children missing out on at least one essential jab between 2019 and 2021.
Following a decade of stalled progress, vaccination rates are back to where they were in 2008, he said, leading to rising outbreaks of measles, diphtheria, polio, and yellow fever.
All countries must address “the barriers to immunization, whether it’s access, availability, cost or disinformation,” he said.
With the positivity rate rising, Senator Christopher Go called on unvaccinated people to get their primary and booster shots against COVID-19.
He reminded the public that getting vaccinated not only protects oneself but also the people around them, especially vulnerable populations such as the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Philippines has the second to highest number of children with “zero doses” in East Asia and the Pacific Region, and fourth in the world.
Because of this, the Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday launched “Chikiting Ligtas 2023: Join the Big Catch Up, Magpabakuna para sa Healthy Pilipinas!”
The DOH partnered with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and WHO in launching the nationwide supplemental immunization campaign that intends to vaccinate children against measles, rubella, and polio.
The event was done in observation of World Immunization Week (WIW) this April 2023.
DOH Officer-in-Charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said one of the DOH’s ‘evergreen goals’ is to protect children from vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, rubella, and polio. With AFP