Cebu province cases climb to 1.6K, deaths at 101

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu province now has a total of 1,608 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases after the Department of Health in Central Visayas (DOH-7) reported 68 new cases of the infection on Monday, July 6, 2020.

The province’s death toll has also climbed to 101 with nine new deaths logged. With the figures, the current case fatality rate in the Cebu province is now 6.2 percent.

In the DOH-7’s tally, Talisay City, Minglanilla, and Consolacion continue to have the most number of COVID-19 cases in the province.

The Health Department reported 35 new cases for Talisay City on Monday, bringing its total tally to 455. The city’s data posted at 7 p.m. on Monday, however, reflects only 397 cases yet.

For Minglanilla, DOH-7 reported three new cases on Monday although the town’s monitoring shows five new cases. The total number of cases according to DOH is at 209, or two heads short of the town’s list of 211 cases.

In Consolacion, the municipal government has reported a total of 221 cases as of June 6. Of the number, 150 remains active,  61 have recovered while 10 have died. But the DOH-7 data shows that the northern Cebu town only has 183 cases.

Read: DOH-7 tells LGUs: Use raw data for contact tracing only, not for announcements

DOH-7, in a virtual press conference on Monday, advised the public to rely on the agency’s data as these have been validated by its Regional Epidemiology Surveillance Unit (RESU).

Daanbantayan, the northernmost town on Cebu island, also recorded one new case on Monday. The patient, a 29-year-old woman from Barangay Tominjao, experienced influenza-like illness (ILI) symptoms last week. Her recent travel history includes Bogo City, also in northern Cebu, for a work engagement.

Danao City also reported three additional COVID-19 cases on the same day. The new cases were from Barangays Guinsay, Suba, and Langosing. This brings the total number of cases in Danao City to 29.

The municipality of Badian in the southwestern part of the island also logged three new cases on Monday, bringing its total number of COVID-19 cases to 10. The new cases include the 55-year-old wife of the town’s patient no.4, a 57-year-old female dialysis patient who is now staying in Cebu City, and her 25-year-old daughter.

In the midwest, Toledo City added four new COVID-19 cases. The new cases include a call center agent, a health worker, a security guard, and a patient who was a known hypertensive, diabetic and had a liver problem. The fourth patient passed away on July 5.

Meanwhile, the number of cases in the highly urbanized city of Mandaue has also climbed to 1,061, according to the city government’s update, Monday night, where it reported 25 new cases and eight recoveries. The DOH-7’s data, however, shows that the city already has 1,065 cases.

In the entire region, the health department’s total COVID-19 count has already reached 10, 506 with 6,527 active cases, 3,570 recoveries, and 408 deaths.

Most of these cases are still concentrated in Cebu City which, according to the DOH-7 data, now has 6,870 cases.

Read: Cebu City Health ceases release of COVID-19 info

The Cebu City Health Department, on Monday evening, has announced that it will cease to release its daily case updates as they reconcile its data discrepancy with the DOH. As of July 5, the CCHD’s reported cases are 600 heads fewer than the DOH-7’s records. / dcb