An aerial view of a part of Cebu City. | CDN FILE PHOTO
CEBU CITY, Philippines — The third surge of COVID-19 cases, which began in July 2021, has officially ended for Cebu City as the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) reports a stable COVID-19 situation in the city.
The first surge was recorded in June 2020 while the second surge was logged from January to March 2021.
“Today we officially end the third surge and thank God it ended with a lowest daily positivity rate of 3.97 percent, the lowest for the last four months,” said Councilor Joel Garganera, the deputy chief implementor of the EOC.
The EOC reports that the active cases have dropped to 707, which is more than 3,000 cases lower than the average 4,000 active cases in July and August 2021.
The hospital occupancy rate now hovers between 31 percent for private hospitals to 56 percent for public hospitals.
This is a significant improvement to the hospital occupancy rate that reached almost 80 percent in August 2021.
The deaths have slowed down as well as only 99 deaths were reported for the month of September as of September 29, as compared to the 288 deaths in August 2021.
“The numbers were increasing exponentially and it was almost unstoppable. Our hospitals were overwhelmed, isolation centers were overflowing with patients. People were dying on the streets and in their own homes. Medical frontliners were on the verge of giving up due to the devastating situation. Looking back, it was a nightmare.”
“But today, after 3 months of war against this faceless, unseeable monster, we have recorded the lowest daily positivity rate since the 3rd surge. Moreover, our active case is even lower than the active cases recorded last July 2, 2021. Numbers in our monitoring sheet are all in a declining trend. I guess, we have finally overcome and conquered the 3rd surge of COVID,” said Garganera in a statement.
Garganera said that active cooperation of all sectors from the medical community, to the business sector, law enforcement, and the residents helped the city conquer the third surge.
Moving forward, the EOC hopes the city will finally achieve herd immunity so no other surges will occur in the coming months.
They encourage the public to get vaccinated and to continue maintaining health protocols after. /rcg