AS DAILY new recorded Covid-19 cases continue to increase, the Davao City Covid-19 Task Force also saw an increase of the city's positivity rate.
Covid-19 Task Force Spokesperson Dr. Michelle Schlosser said the city's positivity rate as of January 2 is at 1.6 percent.
Schlosser said this is an approximate increase of 50 percent.
A week ago, the Task Force official said the positivity rate was at 0.3 percent as of December 26.
She said, though, that this is considered a manageable figure based on the threshold set by the World Health Organization (WHO).
WHO reported that a Covid-19 situation in a certain locality is considered manageable if the positivity rate would not exceed beyond five percent.
She said the highly infectious variants -- Delta and Omicron -- might have something to do with the gradual uptick in the positivity rate of the city.
"Although ang atoang (our) acceptable na positivity rate is still five percent, but then we are battling Delta, naa naman gyud ang Delta (the Delta variant is already here in the city) and we all know na ang Delta is paspas pud mag-spread (that the variant is highly transmissible and can spread faster). And then in anticipation of Omicron, which is exponential ang iyahang pagtaas sa cases (in terms of case increase)," Schlosser said in an interview on 87.5 FM Davao City Disaster Radio on Wednesday, January 5, 2022.
Citing the biosurveillance studies from the Department of Health (DOH), the official said three confirmed Covid-19 cases can infect more than a thousand individuals with Omicron.
She said, however, that there are no detected Omicron cases yet in the city and the rest of Visayas and Mindanao.
But the Task Force is already anticipating a surge of cases, Schlosser said.
Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio said on Monday, January 3, that the surge of cases in the city might be felt in the third or fourth week of January.
She had previously warned that there will be a "post-Holiday" surge of cases in early 2022 due to various factors. She cited mass gatherings during Christmas and New Year and the recent detection of the highly infectious Omicron variant in the country as a contributing factor of a possible uptick of cases.
In anticipation of the possible surge, Schlosser said the city is implementing mitigating measures to prevent the possible risk of a surge, which could overwhelm its healthcare system.
According to the DOH-Davao Region case bulletin, the city started the year 2022 with zero recorded new Covid-19 cases on January 1, while three new cases were logged in January. New cases rose to 16 on January 3, and it doubled the next day (January 4) with 32 cases.
As of January 4, the city's active cases are at 76. Total confirmed cases were at 53,962, wherein 52,085 have recovered and 1,791 have succumbed to the disease.
The entire Davao Region, meanwhile, saw its highest number of new cases in two months with 45 new cases on Tuesday, January 4. The region's active cases rose to 205.