Coronavirus Illustration | Stock Photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines – Health officials in Central Visayas on Monday, August 17,2020, reported a decline in the transmission rate of SARS-CoV-2.
Dr. Mary Jean Loreche, spokesperson of Department of Health here (DOH-7), announced through a virtual press conference that the growth of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the region has slid down to 0.77 percent in the past seven days.
“In Region 7, based on the nationwide statistics, our seven-day growth is less than one percent. It is currently at 0.77 percent which is very good for us,” Loreche said.
COVID-19 is the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, a variant of SARS-CoV which is responsible for the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) epidemic between 2002 and 2003.
Loreche also said that with transmission rate going down, the case-doubling time in Central Visayas has also slowed down to 90 days or three months.
As of August 16, DOH – 7’s COVID-19 bulletin showed that the region has documented a total of 17, 262 COVID-19 cases. Of this number, 11,660 were considered as recoveries already while 1,005 were mortalities related to the viral infection.
This development meant that health officials are currently monitoring a total of 4,597 active cases.
Loreche, however, said the region continues to post high figures in terms of COVID-19-related deaths.
“Although it is a bit sad that we still have high mortalities (compared to most areas in the country) then again we would like to emphasize that reporting COVID-19-deaths would really matter, and we keep doing it,” she said.
Central Visayas has a case-fatality rate of 5.82 percent as of August 16.
Bohol, NegOr being monitored
Bulk of the confirmed COVID-19 cases in the region still came from Cebu island where Cebu City, tagged as the epicenter of the outbreak in the area, is located.
However, Loreche said DOH-7 is closely monitoring COVID-19 developments in the provinces of Negros Oriental and Bohol due to rising cases there.
“We have seen increasing cases in Bohol, including Negros Oriental,” said Loreche.
“These two places we will be focusing on the coming days since we would want to know how come these cases are increasing, and so we could also implement the necessary measures to help them out,” she added. /bmjo