Cimatu to Cebu City: Aim for zero in COVID-19 cases

Department of Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Roy Cimatu (right most) arrives in Cebu City to assess the COVID-19 situation in the city. | Photo courtesy of OPAV

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu challenged Cebu City to reach zero in the cases of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Cimatu said that with the improvement of the COVID-19 situation, the city government must aim for a complete recovery.

For October 2020, Cebu City recorded no additional death of the COVID-19, reduced the active cases to 197, and the positivity rate averages between 1 to 0.5 percent daily.

Furthermore, the critical utilization rate for both public and private hospitals is now around 30 to 20 percent only, easing the burden from the health sector.

Read; Cebu City’s active cases drop to 197

“From being an epicenter of COVID-19, Cebu City is now the epicenter of recovery,” said Cimatu.

Cimatu said as long as the trend of more recoveries than new cases would be kept up in the next months, there would be a chance that Cebu City would eventually have zero in the cases of the virus.

The increased surveillance and monitoring through proactive measures like the pooled testing in the Carbon Market would also contribute to reducing the incident of new cases.

Read: Carbon pooled testing a success – DOH-7

“When we did the Carbon testing, that’s how we saw that the transmission here was lower than the national average,” said Cimatu.

The testing and contract tracing should also continue so that there would never be complacency on the part of the government for the monitoring of the cases.

Still, for Cimatu the achievement of Cebu City has become a model for other cities to recover from the COVID-19.

“Cities in Luzon, Visayas Bacolod, Iloilo, and Mindanao, they are already following Cebu City’s methods,” said Cimatu.

Cimatu hopes that when he comes back to Cebu City in the next months, the cases have dropped to zero or almost zero. /dbs