THE average weekly coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases in the country have decreased by 15 percent, the Octa Research group said.Octa Research fellow, Dr. Guido David, said that as of August 27, the country’s average number of new Covid-19 cases was at 2,959 per day, 15 percent lower than the previous week’s average of 3,487 per day.“The seven-day average was at its highest of 4,071 two weeks ago,” he said.David said the national average daily attack rate is also “low” at 2.69 per 100,000 individuals, while the reproduction number decreased to 0.91 as of August 24 from 0.96 on August 17.He said the positivity rate, or the number of individuals testing positive for the virus after getting tested versus those who tested negative also went down from 16.2 percent to 14.3 percent as of August 26.“If current trends in the growth rate hold, this projects to less than 1,000 cases per day nationwide by mid-September and less than 500 per day by end of September,” said David.David said the positivity rate in most, if not all, of the provinces in the country is also decreasing.He said the positivity rate in the National Capital Region went down to 12.9 percent on August 27 from 14.6 percent on August 20, but it remained at high risk.In Bataan, the positivity rate decreased to 8.8 percent or moderate risk from high risk of 10.5 percent last week.Positivity rates in the provinces of Albay, Camarines Sur, Cagayan, Isabela, La Union, Nueva Ecija and Tarlac also went down but still at very high risk.Benguet, Laguna and Pampanga deescalated to high risk from very high risk in terms of positivity rate.The provinces of Batangas, Bulacan, Cavite, Ilocos Sur, Pangasinan, Quezon, Rizal and Zambales remained under high risk.As of August 28, the country has 28,525 total active Covid-19 cases.The total caseload since 2020 was at 3,874,641 with 61,667 deaths and 3,784,449 recoveries.Intensive care unit (ICU) occupancy for Covid-19 was at 24.75 percent, while non-ICU utilization was at 27.98 percent. (SunStar Philippines)