The Health Department reported 30 additional infections and 216 recoveries from COVID-19 in Cebu on Sunday, August 23, 2020.| Stock Photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu logged on Sunday 216 recoveries from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), six folds more than the additional infections recorded for the day.
The Department of Health in Central Visayas (DOH-7), in its August 23-data, said 30 new cases were logged in the entire region for the day. All coming from Cebu island.
The number is far from the number of cases reported in previous months which climbed to a couple of hundreds per day.
The new cases logged on Sunday included 16 in Cebu City; nine in Cebu province, two cases each in Minglanilla and Consolacion; four in Lapu-Lapu City; and one in Mandaue City.
The 30 new cases were among the 796 samples processed in seven DOH-RITM-accredited COVID-19 laboratories in Cebu. The sample size processed on Sunday, however, is relatively lower than the number that laboratories’ usually process daily based on the previous weeks’ data where tests run in a day goes as much as over 2,000.
DOH-7 COVID-19 Bulletin as of August 23, 2020.
New Cases
The 30 new cases hike the total count of infections in the region to 18,348, although the number of cases that remain active is already down to 2,895.
No new cases, meanwhile, were logged in the neighboring provinces of Bohol, Negros Oriental, and Siquijor.
The continuously lowering number of active cases in Cebu resulted from the high number of recoveries declared daily.
DOH-7 said on Sunday that 216 more individuals got better from the infection, although the agency’s figures continue to differ from those in the reports of local government units (LGUs).
Of the 216 recoveries included in the DOH-7’s tally, 187 are from Lapu-Lapu City, 13 are from Cebu City, five are from Mandaue City, one from Minglanilla, three from Consolacion, and five from the rest of Cebu province.
Based on the DOH-7 Bulletin, Cebu City now has 7,632 recoveries; Mandaue has 1,754; Lapu-Lapu City has 1,686; Cebu province has 1,655; Talisay City has 699; Minglanilla has 410; while Consolacion has 383.
The last three LGUs, although components of Cebu province, have been recently recorded separately as these LGUs have the highest cumulative total of infections. The three also remain under the general community quarantine status while the rest of the province is now under modified general community quarantine (MGCQ).
Based on the tally, the number of recoveries from Cebu is now at 14,219 as against the 18,073 total confirmed cases in the province and the highly urbanized cities of Cebu, Mandaue, and Lapu-Lapu. This leaves a total of 2,895 active cases.
Gap in data
DOH-7’s figure on the COVID-19 cases varies with those reported by Mandaue City which also releases a daily bulletin in the number of cases within the locality.
Mandaue City has declared a total of 2,058 cases, which is lower than the 2,171 reported by DOH-7; the city also said its total recoveries are at 1,707 as compared to the DOH-7 data showing 1,754 recoveries; while the number of validated deaths declared by the city is at 82. The health department has tallied only 80.
In its bulletin, DOH-7 logged eight deaths in Cebu although it noted that said number of deaths are not results of an overnight hike but from data validation and that the deaths that occurred as far back as weeks ago./ dcb