CEBU CITY, Philippines—The Cebu City Emergency Operations Center (EOC) said that in the past 11 days, transmission of COVID-19 has slowed down.
The EOC said the daily positivity rate has remained below five percent for the said days, which is within the World Health Organization (WHO) pandemic threshold.
The positivity rate is the rate between the number of positive COVID-19 cases in relative to the number of individuals tested in a day.
On March 7, 2022, the city recorded only 2.14 percent positivity rate with only nine fresh cases from the 421 tested individuals.
Based on EOC data, there are only 184 active cases in the city as of Monday.
“The positivity rate is a critical measure because it tells us an indication of how widespread covid infection is in Cebu City and whether levels of testing are keeping up with levels of disease transmission,” said Councilor Joel Garganera, the deputy chief implementor of the EOC.
He said high percentage of positive tests suggests high coronavirus infection rates due to high transmission in the community.
“It can indicate it may be a good time to add restrictions to slow the spread of disease. Fortunately, we have surpassed and overcome, the almost unmanageable digits of our covid season,” the councilor added.
The EOC notes that the coronavirus transmission relative to testing is low in the city at the moment.
This means that the risk of getting COVID-19 is lower.
However, the public is reminded that COVID transmission can increase again at any time.
“To be clear, a low positivity rate does not mean there is herd immunity. We all need to keep our guard up if we want to keep transmission levels low. Let’s all get vaccinated,” said the councilor.
The hospital utilization rate of the city is also low at only 33.13 percent, showing that only a few individuals are hospitalized due to COVID.
The death count for March is only three so far in the first week.
At least half of the 80 barangays have active COVID cases ranging from 1 to 16 each.
The city stays under Alert Number 2 until March 15, 2022.
/bmjo
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Cebu City posts lowest positivity rate for 2021