The Philippines continued to report lower cases today with positivity rate of 7.5%. Only 41,712 tests were done last October 30, and would expect even fewer tests for yesterday October 31 and today November 1 because they are holidays in the country.
With more recoveries than cases announced, the active cases now dips lower to around 43,000.
There are 104 new deaths announced today.
NCR reported 537 new cases or 17.2% of the total cases in the country today. Two regions in Northern Luzon continue to trail NCR – Cagayan Valley and CAR. Notice that there are more regions now seeing double digit cases as provinces outside of NCR are slowing down in cases as well. Although this may be correlated also with fewer testing done.
Among provinces, 5 of 10 provinces in the top 10 list were from Northern Luzon. This was led by Isabela, followed by Cagayan, Benguet, Nueva Vizcaya and Ifugao.
On a city/municipality level, Quezon City kept the lead. As a matter of fact, Quezon City alone accounted for almost 30% of the total cases in NCR. It was also the only LGU in the country that continuously reports triple digit cases. Nine of 17 LGUs in NCR were in the top twenty. The striking data today showed that 7 LGUs in Northern Luzon were among the top 20.
OCTA RESEARCH MONITORING REPORT
This week is a new beginning. Will we see better data for the month of November in the NCR? We need to sustain the momentum. That means, and I’ve been saying this already, is to keep the R at <0.5. Keeping above this just does not cut it. Because it is the major economic hub and the epicenter for cases in the country due to its density (highest number of people by region in terms of land area), my personal opinion is that the only way it should be allowed to move to a lower alert level from the current level 3 is if it keeps R <0.5 for 2 consecutive weeks or account for only 10% of the total cases in the country for 2 consecutive weeks.
Navotas is the only LGU that has markedly improved in terms of cases, ADAR and R. Notice that it is the only LGU of 17 LGUs in NCR that is at very low risk with 1.48 cases/100,000 population and a R of 0.27.
While the positivity rate of NCR in general is at 5%, the growth rate is up for some cities (unlike the previous week where all were on the decline). Those LGUs with positive growth rates include: Malabon, Muntinlupa, Las Piñas, Pateros, Makati, Mandaluyong and San Juan.
Both Mandaluyong and San Juan have high risk for their ADAR, while ICU utilization is at moderate risk for Muntinlupa, Las Piñas, Makati and San Juan.
Relative Joy 