THE recovery rate of patients infected with the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) in Cebu City is 95 percent.
According to data of the City’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC), as of Saturday, May 15, 2021, 22,594 of the 23,781 who tested positive for the disease have recovered.
The same data shows that the city has 329 active cases.
Cebu City posts a fatality rate of 3.61, with 858 individuals succumbing to the disease.
City Councilor Joel Garganera, EOC deputy chief implementer, said the EOC also recorded the second lowest positivity rate for this year on May 15, which was 1.61 percent, after recording a positivity rate of 1.45 percent last week.
Garganera said Saturday’s 1.61 positivity rate was “more cogent” because the EOC was able to test 1,053 individuals with only 17 turning out positive for Covid-19.
Last week’s 1.45 percent positivity rate was only out of 413 samples tested, he said.
Of the 263,560 individuals who have been tested since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in the beginning of last year, 9.02 percent have tested positive.
Thirty-three of the city’s 80 barangays have not reported any Covid-19 cases in the past 10 days.
Only 21.4 percent of beds allocated for Covid-19 patients in 15 hospitals in Cebu City are occupied.
Garganera said that although the Covid-19 situation in the city has improved, this does not necessarily mean the city has won the fight against the virus.
He reminded the public to continue practicing health protocols.
He also echoed the statement of Mayor Edgardo Labella that the vaccine is not a substitute to these health practices.
“We will be more protected from the Covid-19 if we both avail (ourselves of) the vaccination and practice health protocols side by side,” Garganera said.
On Saturday, the Department of Health (DOH) reported 93 additional mortalities, pushing the death toll from Covid-19 in the country past 19,000.
As of May 15, a total of 19,051 had died from Covid-19 in the Philippines. The case fatality rate swung back to 1.67 percent.
Active cases declined to 56,709, or 5.0 percent of the total count, as 8,952 new recoveries exceeded the 6,739 new Covid-19 cases.
A total of 1,138,187 individuals have contracted the virus in the Philippines. Of these, 93.3 percent, or 1,062,427, have recovered.
Meanwhile, three passengers who were on the same flight as the 58-year-old B.1.617.2 case have tested positive for Sars-CoV-2.
DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said 28 others were found negative.
Three of the six passengers considered as close contacts of the 37-year-old B.1.617.2 case also tested negative. The three others were being located.
The B.1.617.2 is one of three sub-lineages of the B.1.617 variant of Sars-CoV-2, which is believed to be causing the explosive rise in Covid-19 cases in India.
The DOH is tracing close contacts among the co-passengers of the two returning overseas Filipino workers with this variant, after its Epidemiology Bureau director said the two patients had no close contacts. (JJL / HDT / SunStar Philippines)