Cebu City downgrades to Alert Level 2; daily positivity rate drops to 8%
High-rise buildings over Cebu City. CDN Digital photo | Brian J. Ochoa
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City’s COVID-19 situation continues to be better as it has now been downgraded to Alert Level 2.
The Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for COVID-19, through Malacañan Palace, has announced the new Alert Status of provinces in the country, placing the entire Cebu including Cebu City under Alert Level 2.
Cebu City and the rest of Cebu were placed in Alert Level 3 from January to February 15, 2022, due to the Omicron-driven surge, a surge that dropped shortly after it peaked in mid-January.
In Cebu City, the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) revealed that the daily positivity rate in the city had dropped to 8.5 percent, a large contrast to the situation a month ago when the daily positivity rate reached 57 percent.
The city recorded only 46 new COVID-19 cases on February 14, 2022, as compared to the 500 recoveries on the same day resulting in the drop of active cases to 2,364.
The hospital utilization rate is also at 36 percent, or at least half of the rate in January 2022, which reached 70 percent.
“Three weeks ago, 752 of our medical frontliners in 22 facilities in Metro Cebu got COVID. Today, they’re now down to only 174. This means with low case and low CCC (Covid Critical Care) occupancy, our health care facilities are in the pink of health,” said Councilor Joel Garganera, deputy chief implementor of the EOC.
Garganera said that the charts of the COVID-19 cases showed a deep and continuous drop of cases in the past 14 days, and they hoped that this would continue to drop because the city had started the year with only nine active cases.
“To me this is the best Valentine’s gift, and we should continue to work together protocol wise, walay imposible, kaya ni nato pildihon si COVID aron ma normal na pagbalik atong kinabuhi inubanan sa pagmatngon sa tanan higayon,” said the councilor.
(To me this is the best Valentine’s gift, and we should continue to work together protocol wise, there is nothing that’s impossible, we can defeat COVID so that we can return to our normal lives together with caution for all at all times.)
Mayor Michael Rama said in his regular Monday press conference that the reduction of the Alert Level Status should not be a reason to become complacent.
He urged the public to remain vigilant and maintain the health protocols at all times so that the cases would continue to drop.
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