The Covid-19 positivity rate in Metro Manila dropped to 5 percent on Jan. 10, based on monitoring by OCTA Research.
OCTA fellow Dr. Guido David said that the positivity rate—or the number of individuals who yielded positive results from those tested for Covid-19—dropped from 7.9 percent on Jan. 3 to 5 percent on Jan. 10.
“The last time the positivity rate was below 5 percent was on June 22, 2022 at the outset of three Covid waves in the National Capital Region,” David said.
This means that Metro Manila's Covid positivity rate is now within the 5 percent benchmark set by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The WHO recommends that the positivity rate should remain at 5 percent or less to show that the spread of the virus is under control.
However, David said that while the positivity rates decreased in most of the country, the rate increased in Isabela (35.1 percent to 62.3 percent), Oriental Mindoro (16.3 percent to 38.5 percent), and Palawan (22.6 percent to 25.3 percent).
He noted that higher positivity rates indicate "significant levels of infection in those provinces."
“Waves of infection do not occur evenly in the country. Provinces may have different levels of immunity Omicron subvariants are not the same in each province,” David pointed out.