THE country’s coronavirus disease (Covid-19) positivity rate and reproduction number slightly went up, but the risk classification of the Philippines remained “very low,” the Octa Research group said.Octa Research fellow Dr. Guido David said as of March 20, 2022, the country’s positivity rate was at 2.5 percent from 1.4 percent during the week prior.He said the reproduction number as of March 18 was 0.29 from 0.23 on March 11.“Other sources of analytics indicate a reproduction number of 1.2 in the Philippines. However, the figure on new cases shows a flat, slightly downward trend but not an increasing one,” said David.“Overall, the Philippines remained under very low risk but we will continue to monitor possible changes in the trends. Let us continue to follow minimum health protocols,” he added.The country’s average daily cases from March 15 to 21 was at 491, 14 percent lower than the 569 during the previous week.Meanwhile, Department of Health (DOH) Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said on Tuesday, March 22, that there is no increase in the country’s positivity rate.“Wala naman kaming nakitang pagtaas ng positivity rate because we are monitoring this. Maaari ‘yung pagmeasure ng ibang research firms different from how we measure,” she said in a virtual press conference.“We measure our positivity rate by week, we don’t measure it per day because there are a lot of factors that may affect the computation of daily positivity rate which can bias ito pong nakukuha ninyong resulta and can affect the decision and policy making,” she added.Vergeire, however, was one with David in saying that the country is at “minimal risk” classification for Covid-19, while the health systems capacity is at low risk.The DOH had recorded a total of 3,572 new Covid-19 cases from March 14 to 20 or 510 daily average cases, which is 13 percent lower than the cases recorded on the week prior, or from March 7 to 13.Of the over 3,500 new cases, only one had severe or critical illness.Vergeire said that Covid-19 severe and critical hospital admissions have declined from 1,874 to 805 cases since January when the country experienced the fifth surge due to the Omicron variant.She said most of those hospitalized Covid-19 patients only experienced mild, asymptomatic and moderate symptoms.Vergeire said the continuous decrease of critical and severe cases can be attributed to the public’s adherence to minimum health standards set by the government, as well as the Covid-19 vaccination. (SunStar Philippines)