Cebu City officials are now beginning to observe a drop in the number of new COVID-19 infections here. |CDN Digital file photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines – Officials in Cebu City are anticipating the number of new coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases to continually decline.
This after the city’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC) observed that the daily new cases of the infection “have plateaued” in the past weeks.
“It’s almost three weeks that we plateaued and our cases are really going down,” said Councilor Joel Garganera, the EOC chief.
Garganera also said they saw an improvement in the COVID-19 situation in the city despite registering a gradual increase in the positivity rate.
“Out of the 1,104 tested (on March 28), only 82 are positive, with a positivity rate of 7.43 percent. It’s still higher than the WHO (World Health Organization) threshold (at 5 percent) but it’s a big improvement (compared) to the 15 to 23 percent (in) the past weeks,” he explained.
Aside from the decrease in new infections, officials from the EOC also pointed at the decline in critical care utilization rates as an indicator that the COVID-19 transmission in the city is now slowing down.
Based on the recent data from the EOC, Cebu City’s critical care utilization rate among private hospitals dropped to 28 percent as of March 27.
“All time low this year for our critical care occupancy for private hospitals – 28 percent. Out of the 678 beds, only 195 are occupied. And (at) our four public hospitals, only 49 percent,” said Garganera.
The COVID-19 bulletin from the Department of Health in Central Visayas (DOH-7) showed that Cebu City, on March 28, recorded more recoveries than new confirmed cases, breaking weeks-long trend of recording triple digits.
A total of 178 additional recoveries were logged while there were 80 new cases of the infection on March 28.
Active cases in Cebu City, which remained under the most relaxed form of community quarantine – Modified General Community Quarantine – still stands at 1, 812. / dcb