Cebu City COVID-19 positivity rate drops to 16%

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City’s positivity rate for the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has decreased from 31 percent to 16 percent over the past month.

This was revealed by Cebu City Councilor Joel Garganera, the deputy chief implementor for the Emergency Operation Center (EOC) of the Interagency Task Force (IATF) in Cebu City, in a press conference on July 22, 2020.

Positivity rate is the percentage of people who test positive for the virus compared to the overall number of individuals who have been tested.

Garganera said that as the city is now ready to implement the granular lockdowns, or sitio-targeted lockdown in the barangays, as the positivity rate has already decreased to almost half since the city was placed in a stricter Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) on June 15, 2020.

This a good sign, says Garganera, because this reflects the intensified contact tracing of the city, as more people are tested, but lesser people are becoming infected.

There are now 114 teams being deployed in the barangays to facilitate the contact tracing of the active COVID-19 cases.

The granular lockdowns are also being eyed in barangays with most COVID-19 cases.

Read: Granular lockdown eyed in Cebu City barangays with most number of COVID-19 cases

The city is specifically monitoring 21 barangays, but Garganera clarified that it does not mean they will all be placed under granular lockdown.

“The granular lockdown is like a targeted therapy, we will only lockdown the areas that are affected by the virus, and we will provide the locked down area with provision,” said Garganera.

The protocol would really be to lockdown a house or a neighborhood should a suspected case be found in an area.

Once a patient is swabbed, he or she will be automatically quarantined whether at home or at an isolation center. Provisions will be provided to the locked down area until the results are released.

The contact tracing team will already be deployed automatically to trace all possible contacts of the suspected patients. This way, if the patient is positive, the close contacts will be identified and testing can automatically follow.

If the patient is positive, the provisions will be delivered enough for 14 days from the day the patient is first quarantined. This also goes for all households and individuals placed under the targeted lockdown.

The data of the city is also being consolidated with that of the Department of Health (DOH) through proper validation in the barangays.

This is to address the concern of the barangay chiefs that the data from the DOH is not updated.

Garganera urged the barangays to intensify monitoring of their patients, so these can be cleared and be counted as recoveries.

The EOC deputy implementor said the granular lockdown will soon be implemented when they finalize which barangays will be the pilot areas. /bmjo