CEBU City has seen a steady decline in active coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases in the last four days, with the figure falling to 6,985 on Monday, Jan. 31, 2022, from the record-high 7,663 on Jan. 27, data from the City’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC) show.
This comes as the 166 new cases reported on Monday also showed a dramatic decline from the Jan. 20 tally of 1,126 new cases, the highest single-day tally the EOC recorded since the pandemic began in March 2020.
But the Department of Health Central Visayas (DOH 7) said Tuesday this does not mean the end of the Omicron variant’s onslaught as a sizable number of Covid-19 cases in the community may be unreported.
The fourth wave of Covid-19 began in Cebu City in the first month of 2022, with active cases skyrocketing from just 11 on the first day of the year, to the three-digit level of 132 five days layer on Jan. 6, and then to the four-digit level of 1,292. on Jan. 13.
The EOC also reported 481 recoveries and six new deaths on Monday, bringing the number of mortalities for the month of January to 65.
The city’s daily positivity rate (DPR) was 26.73 percent from 621 individuals tested on Jan. 31, down from 27.74 percent the day before and 36.06 percent on Jan. 29.
These are significant declines from the record-high DPR of 56.62 percent the city registered on Jan. 21.
A positivity rate of less than five percent for the last two weeks is the threshold set by the World Health Organization to indicate that transmission has been controlled in an area.
The positivity rate is the percentage of all tests performed that come out positive.
The decrease in active cases and recoveries outnumbering the daily cases Monday made City Councilor Joel Garganera say that it could be “a good sign.”
Garganera, deputy chief implementer of the EOC, however, was still cautious, saying that it was “early to tell.”
“These first two weeks of February will determine if we can deescalate to a much lower alert level. Again, let us hold our fort by seriously complying with the health protocols and the mayor’s executive order (Oplan Puyo Gihapon), and most especially vaccination,” he said.
The whole Central Visayas is currently under Alert Level 3 until Feb. 15.
Child vaccination
Garganera said Cebu City will start vaccinating children ages five to 11 years old this month.
The City, however, still has to finalize the date of the vaccination rollout, City Health Department head Dr. Jeffrey Ibones said in a separate interview.
Ibones said the Cebu City Sports Center is the only vaccination site identified for the five-11-year-olds without comorbidities so far.
Cebu City still has to finalize the vaccination sites for children in the same age group with comorbidities, Ibones said.
For children under seven years old, only their parents’ consent is needed before they can receive their Covid-19 vaccine jabs.
But for children seven years old and above, the children must also give their consent along with their parent’s in order to get vaccinated.
Not over
The DOH 7 shared Garganera’s cautiousness.
Contrary to the findings of an independent research group that the “worst is over” for some parts of the country, including Cebu, DOH 7 chief pathologist Dr. Mary Jean Loreche said Tuesday that it is still difficult to say that the surge in Covid-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has reached its peak in Cebu.
On Monday, Jan. 31, Octa Research fellow Dr. Guido David had said Cebu City was one of the places in the country where Covid-19 cases had already peaked, or were currently peaking and moving toward the downward trajectory.
Loreche said the stabilization of the number of Covid-19 infected individuals may be attributed to the “stay-at-home” orders of the local government units.
The non-requiring of testing for individuals who are close contacts except for those identified as high-risk groups can also be one of the factors of the stabilization of cases, she said.
“We can just surmise that this may account for at least 20 percent of should-be cases,” said Loreche.
However, Loreche confirmed that they are already seeing a downward trend in the daily positivity rate and the number of recorded active cases in Cebu.
Loreche added that they are closely monitoring the capacity utilization rates of hospitals as these better reflect the government’s fight against this variant of concern.
Over in the capital, the DOH announced that over 9,000 new cases of Covid-19 were added to the Philippines’ tally Tuesday, along with 24,201 additional recoveries and 51 deaths.
The 9,493 new cases announced Tuesday raised the country’s total caseload to 3,569,665.
Of the newly reported cases, 6,961 or 73 percent occurred in the last 14 days (Jan. 19-Feb. 1, 2022).
The 24,210 recoveries brought the total active cases in the Philippines down to 176,053, from Monday’s 190,818.
Of the active infections, 6,133 were asymptomatic, 164,995 were mild, 3,070 were moderate, 1,529 were severe and 326 were in critical condition, the DOH said.
The DOH said that of the 51 deaths, 50 occurred in January 2022 (98 percent) and one in September 2021 (two percent).
The positivity rate, meanwhile, went up to 28.8 percent from Monday’s 28.4 percent. (KAL, IRT, LMY / SunStar Philippines)