The Health Agency reports 4,806 new cases today. But that’s not surprising (considering were were coming from 3,600 plus cases on the low Wednesday). With more than 52,000 tests and a positivity rate of 10.9% for October 19, 2021, the lower positivity rate is encouraging. However, we really need to be testing more cases (and contact trace) in order to achieve a positivity rate below 5%. On a provincial level, some provinces like Cebu and Cavite have positivity rates at 6%, lower than the national average.
The deaths, however, climbed higher today with the system reporting 260 new deaths, pushing the total deaths past the 41,000 mark.
Hospital utilization and ICU utilization rates are down in the NCR in general.
Cagayan Valley topped the regions for the first time since the start of this surge and the pandemic as a whole with almost 1,000 cases for today. This was followed by NCR with 842 cases and accounting for 17.5% of the total cases in the country. While several regions saw lower cases today, regions in Northern Luzon continued to report higher cases in general (although is seeing a general decrease in percentage per region).
On a provincial level, Isabela topped today’s count. In the top ten provinces with most cases were: Benguet, Cagayan, Nueva Vizcaya, Quirino, and Pangasinan. All provinces in the north.
On a city/municipality level, Quezon City took back the lead and NCR had 6 of 17 LGUs in the top 20 list. Six LGUs in Isabela alone made it to the list – Ramon, City of Cauayan, Roxas, Jones, Aurora and City of Santiago.
Relative Joy 