WILL someone please educate ignorant me on the meaning of “recovered” Covid-19 cases? No, not just anyone, please, but a public health official. I cannot trust the opinion of the so-called experts whose number has seemed to grow in proportion to the spread of the novel coronavirus.
SunStar reported yesterday that Cebu City has, as of latest count, a total number of 1,992 confirmed Covid-19 cases with 97 recoveries and 23 deaths. In the same story, however, 63 patients have been allowed to go home from isolation because the repeat swab tests showed that they were already negative of the virus. Are the 63 considered “recovered cases”?
I’d like to believe so, but the numbers do not add up. Last week, City Hall announced that 51 Sitio Zapatera residents were released from the Barangay Luz isolation center and allowed to go home after two subsequent tests showed negative results.
This means that 114 Covid-19 patients have been found negative of the virus in subsequent tests in the two barangays alone and in a span of one week. So why has the number of recoveries stayed at 97?
Is it because the term “recovery” applies only to symptomatic Covid-19 patients? If it is so, then the numbers that are fed to the public are grossly distorted because while the asymptomatic are included in the count of confirmed cases, their recovery is not.
I am not being petty. Public morale is low because of the relatively high number of cases in the city. Reporting a very low recovery rate does nothing to ease our fears unless they’re telling us that the average recovery period of Covid-19 patients ranges from say, two to three months and that despite the absence of medicine for the ailment, these active cases will eventually end up in the patients being healed. What do you say, Drs. Jaime Bernadas and Daisy Villa?
This paper also reported in the same news item yesterday that Cebu City logged 96 new Covid-19 cases the other day. Ninety-six in a single day is already a bad sign but what makes it more disturbing is that these cases were spread in many areas in the city, unlike in the past where they were mostly localized.
I hope that this is merely an aberration and that the next few days will see a dramatic downtrend in newly-discovered infections. We are approaching the end of the enhanced community quarantine and are looking forward to a downgrade since a total lifting of restrictions is unrealistic, if not impossible.
Once again, Mayor Edgardo Labella faces the unenviable task of choosing whether to recommend extending the ECQ or modifying it. People are getting restless over their being kept out of their workplace and businessmen are apprehensive that their companies may not be able to survive further restrictions.
On the other hand, the public health interest cannot be completely ignored. It would be criminally negligent of anyone to do so. We have to strike a balance between the two interests.
Labella said that his decision will be based on data and that he will listen to the experts. But there is no hiding the fact that this is ultimately his call and we can only pray that he makes the right one.