Central Visayas records biggest number of new COVID-19 cases in 1 day

A certified medical assistant places a swab into a vial for one of the first 50 people tested for coronavirus at Flint’s first drive-thru testing site, Wednesday, April 15, 2020 at Atwood Stadium in Flint, Mich. (Jake May/The Flint Journal via AP)

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Central Visayas on Friday, April 17, 202, has recorded its biggest additional cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in one day, and a near double growth rate.

Eighty five new individuals were found to have been infected with COVID-19 for Friday, bringing the total of Central Visayas to 180, according to the data from the Department of Health here (DOH-7), and breaching the 100-mark.

This also accounts to an estimated 47.2 percent increase from 95 on Thursday, April 16, 2020.

Of these, 84 are from Cebu City while the remaining COVID-19 positive result is from a Lapu-Lapu City resident.

However, as of this posting, the local governments of the cities of Cebu and Lapu-Lapu have announced these developments earlier.

“Eighty-four (84) of the new cases are all residents of Cebu City and again are close contacts of previously confirmed cases detected through contact tracing activities. Cebu City now has a total of one hundred and sixty-one (161) cases,” Dr. Jaime Bernadas, DOH-7 director, said in a press release.

Bernadas also said all the new confirmed cases in Central Visayas had negative to mild symptoms.

“They will be transferred to designated isolation areas identified by the local government units as soon as possible,” he added.

The DOH-7 have reported that 423 specimens tested at Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC), the sub-national level laboratory here, on Friday, the highest also in terms of COVID-19 samples screened.

As a result, 2,368 specimens from Central Visayas have been examined for coronavirus.

Cebu remains the province in Central Visayas with the highest number of COVID-19 cases as 175 of the entire region’s count (180 COVID-19 cases) are from here.

Siquijor is the only province in Central Visayas that is COVID-19-free or free of confirmed coronavirus positive cases.

The DOH-7 also did not report any new recoveries and mortalities as of Friday in Central Visayas, keeping the numbers at 23 and 8 respectively.

On the other hand, the additional new cases logged in Central Visayas resulted to ‘a decrease in the case fatality rate or percentage of deaths among those who are infected with COVID-19’.

The health agency said that from eight percent, the case fatality rate was reduced to four percent. /dbs