ANOTHER day, another harsh milestone, as the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) continues to pick its victims in Cebu.
After breaching 500 three days ago, the death toll from Covid-19 this month in the whole Cebu has now hit 700 for just the first 18 days of August, according to the latest Department of Health (DOH) 7 case bulletin.
The 700 deaths reported so far this month account for nearly half or 45 percent of the 1,560 Covid deaths reported in Cebu this year.
Cebu Province accounted for 56 percent of the deaths this month with 394 deaths, followed by Cebu City with 166 deaths (24 percent); Lapu-Lapu City, 93 deaths (13 percent); and Mandaue City, 47 deaths (seven percent).
Cebu Province, which comprises 44 towns and six component cities, makes up 64 percent of Cebu island’s population. Cebu City makes up 19 percent; Lapu-Lapu, 10 percent; and Mandaue, seven percent.
The DOH 7 daily case bulletins come with the note that not all deaths reported on a certain day occurred on that day, but some may have occurred more than a week ago but were only recently reported following validation of the outcome of the confirmed cases.
That means of the 700 deaths reported in the first two weeks of August, not all Covid victims died this month.
Eugenia Mercedes Cañal of the Regional Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit (Resu), said from Aug. 1 to 16, the DOH 7 logged a total of 456 confirmed Covid-19-related deaths in the entire Cebu. These were mortalities confirmed as Covid-related by their death certificates.
Of the number, 259 mortalities were recorded in Cebu Province, 116 in Cebu City, 57 in Lapu-Lapu City, and 24 in Mandaue City.
The Covid death toll of 1,560 in less than eight months of this year now surpasses the death toll of 1,384 reported in the whole of 2020.
But the case fatality rate this year continues to be less than half that of 2020 because of the sheer number of new cases reported this year as a combination of new and more transmissible coronavirus variants and lockdown fatigue conspired to make residents more vulnerable to the virus.