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CEBU CITY, Philippines – The total number of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases in Central Visayas already breached the 13,000-mark on July 17 with the addition of 244 new cases of the infection on the same day.
In its latest COVID-19 case bulletin released Friday night, the Department of Health in Central Visayas (DOH – 7) reported a total of 13,172 cases in the region with 99 percent of these cases coming from the island of Cebu.
A total of 13, 037 of the 13, 172 cases are from Cebu island while the remaining 135 come from the neighboring island-provinces of Negros Oriental and Bohol.
Siquijor, for its part, has remained COVID-free.
Of the 244 new cases that it logged on Friday, DOH-7 said that 127 or more than half of the total number came from Cebu City, the epicenter of the virus’ outbreak in Central Visayas.
The cities of Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu each logged 20 new cases of the infection while Cebu province had 64 new ones. Bohol also had 13 additional cases on Friday.
The number of COVID-related deaths in Central Visayas also increased to 650 with the addition of five more deaths on Friday bringing the region’s case-fatality rate to 4.93 percent.
Recoveries, on the other hand, are nearing the 6,000-mark as DOH-7 already documented a total of 5,897 recovered patients on Friday. Around 74 percent of the region’s total recoveries also come from Cebu City.
Central Visayas’ active cases of the infection is now at 6,625. Active cases pertain to patients who are yet to recover from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
DOH – 7 also posted the highest number of samples tested for COVID-19 infection on Friday, with a total of 1,800. The test results came from three of Cebu’s molecular labs dedicated to processing coronavirus tests. / dcb