Cebu City records lowest COVID-19 positivity rate in months

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Only five out of 776 tested individuals  proved positive to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) on October 6, 2020.

In a press conference on Wednesday, October 7, 2020, Councilor Joel Garganera, the deputy chief implementor of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) said that this has been the lowest positivity rate the city recorded since June 2020.

The positivity rate is only 0.6 percent for the batch, whose results were released on October 6, 2020. This was lower than the average 1.51 percent to 0.7 percent in September 2020.

The case doubling time also improved to 20.6 days, better than the less than seven days doubling time logged in June 2020.

Only 190 out of the 725 COVID-19 dedicated beds available are being utilized in hospitals, which means that the hospitals are no longer overwhelmed.

There were no deaths recorded in the first week of October and the deaths have decreased per month dropping from 300 in June 2020 to less than 20 deaths by September 2020.

Councilor Joel Garganera said that since the end of July 2020, Cebu City has maintained the flattened curve.

Read: Labella reminds Cebuanos: Be more vigilant, cooperate to continue flattening the curve

“Yet this is not a reason to be complacent,” he said.

To increase monitoring and the surveillance, the EOC expanded the Carbon Market testing to continue until Friday, October 9, 2020.

At least 500 stall owners will be tested tomorrow, October 8, 2020, from Unit I of the Carbon Market.

/bmjo