The Philippines Department of Health recorded another 1521 COVID-19 cases today, including 1237 from the National Capital Region, bringing the country total to 68,898.

In addition, four additional deaths were reported putting that total to 1835.

UP COVID-19 Pandemic Response Team member Dr. Darwin Bandoy said a decrease in the positive rate and reproductive number means improvement in the national response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“When the positivity rate goes down it means the detection of cases has improved and less are getting sick, and the reproductive number goes down, less than one, we’re able to control the) pandemic,” Bandoy said.

Dr Bandoy also reminded the public that comparing COVID-19 to other diseases can be misleading. “For example, they’ll say only such percent died from a certain disease and then they’ll compare it with Covid-19 deaths. They don’t notice that it is one year worth of data, and Covid-19 hasn’t been around for a year, Covid-19 data are fairly new, so there are improper comparisons influence people to ignore the severity of Covid-19”, Bandoy added.