Tuguegarao City, Cagayan – The Octa Research group has included Isabela & Cagayan along with 13 other Luzon provinces in its list of areas with ‘very high’ COVID-19 positivity rates.
Octa fellow Guido David said on Monday, August 8, that other areas in Luzon with soaring positivity rates are Albay, Benguet, Cavite, La Union, Laguna, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Pangasinan, Quezon, Rizal, Tarlac, Zambales, and Camarines Sur.
The research group defined ‘positivity rate’ as the percentage of COVID-19 positive results taken from tested people in a certain area, while the World Health Organization’s set benchmark for an area’s positivity rate is below 5%.
David disclosed that the highest positivity rate in Luzon is in Camarines Sur with over 48%; tailed by Isabela with over 47%.
Cagayan province was also tagged with a significantly high rate with 30.5%.
Based on data submitted by Provincial Health Offices, Cagayan currently has 507 active COVID-19 cases; while Isabela has 390 active infections.
Both provinces in Region 2 have been observed by the PHO’s and Octa to have consistent climbs in active patients, while other provinces in the region have also logged hikes over the past 2 weeks.
While reports of increasing infections have been noted, the Department of Health has previously detected the Omicron subvariant BA.5 in Region 2 based on tested samples from the Philippine Genome Center.
The Inter-Agency Task Force last week has retained ‘Alert Level 1’ status in Cagayan, Isabela and the rest of the region until August 15. TNF