MANILA, Philippines — Metro Manila and at least five provinces in Luzon have seen increases in their COVID-19 positivity rates over the past week, according to independent pandemic monitor OCTA Research.

Guido David, OCTA Research fellow, in a post on Twitter, noted that Metro Manila’s positivity rate increased to 15.6 percent on Sept. 17, from 13.3 percent on Sept. 10.

The positivity rate refers to the number of all tests conducted for COVID-19, which yielded positive results.

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) benchmark positivity rate of below 5 percent, sustained for two weeks, indicates that virus transmission is under control.

5 Luzon provinces

Apart from the National Capital Region, David said that higher positivity rates were also observed in Bulacan (16.1 percent from 11.5 percent), Cavite (16.6 percent from 13.9 percent), Laguna (10.7 percent from 9.8 percent), Pangasinan (8 percent from 6.9 percent) and Rizal (18.7 percent from 17.4 percent).

Only Zambales registered a low positivity rate of 4.4 percent while the rest of the provinces in Luzon had improved positivity rates, said David.

Meanwhile, the Department of Health (DOH) on Monday reported additional 14,707 COVID-19 cases from Sept. 12 to Sept. 18, or an average of 2,101 infections per day.

According to the DOH’s weekly COVID-19 bulletin, the cases reported in the recent week were 4 percent lower compared with the 15,379 cases from Sept. 5 to Sept. 11.

The daily case average also slightly decreased from last week’s 2,197.

The DOH also reported seven new severe and critical cases, which was 0.05 percent of the new cases reported for the week.

A total of 248 new COVID-19 fatalities were verified during the past week, 34 of which occurred this month. The rest of the deaths happened between July 2020 and August 2022, but were belatedly reported in the past week.

The latest fatalities pushed the death toll to 62,549.

The country’s total caseload as of Sept. 18 was 3,920,693.

The recent statement of the head of the WHO about the end of the COVID-19 being in sight is no excuse to relax minimum public health protocols.