THE Provincial Incident Management Team (PIMT) of Negros Occidental reported Thursday, March 3, 2022, that several towns and cities in the province are already reporting zero Covid-19 cases, both active and new cases.

The PIMT, however, did not name these local government units (LGUs). But these localities have been “free of Covid-19” for almost a week now, it added.

On Tuesday, March 1, Sipalay City announced that it logged zero additional infections for the last six days.

On February 23, the local government reported that it had no Covid-19 active cases.

Provincial Administrator lawyer Rayfrando Diaz II said active Covid-19 cases in Negros Occidental continue to decline, saying that “so far, we are on the right track and I hope this is already the end of our sacrifices.”

He is upbeat that by March 16, once the National Inter-Agency Task Force (NIATF) issues its new Covid-19 alert levels, Negros Occidental will be downgraded to Alert Level 1 or the “new normal” status.

The NIATF recently placed the province, except for its highly urbanized capital Bacolod City, under Alert Level 2 in terms of Covid-19 risk transmission.

As of March 2, the Department of Health-Western Visayas reported that the province still had 2,373 active Covid-19 cases.

The figure forms part of 40,165 total confirmed cases since the pandemic started with 36,392 recoveries and 1,379 deaths.