Cebu City active cases climb to 306

CEBU, Philippines —  From 187 last week, the active COVID-19 cases in Cebu City is now back to 306, with 25 additional cases on Wednesday, November 18, data from the Department of Health in Central Visayas showed.

The total cases in the city are at 10,505 while total recoveries are still at 9,516.

No additional recoveries were reported on Nov. 18.

Despite the double-digit rise in cases in the last few days, Emergency Operations Center deputy chief implementer and City Councilor Joel Garganera said the city remains in a “pink of health.”

“As of now, we are in the pink of health so far as isolation for asymptomatic patients is concerned,” he said.

The 25 additional cases have already been extracted and put into an isolation facility, while contacts have already been traced. They come from 16 unnamed barangays.

“Ang atong contact tracing, nag-locate na sila didto, gani hapit na nahuman sa 25 nato nga kaso,” said Garganera.

 The 25 additional cases were out of over a thousand samples which makes for a 2.2 percent positivity rate.

There are 39 barangays still without reported transmission in the last 14 days.

Back in full op

In another development, the EOC is expected to be back in full operation in its office today, Friday, after being disinfected.

Even when the EOC’s office was undergoing disinfection after one staff worker tested positive, work at the center remained uninterrupted, said Garganera.

Those in contact with the worker already underwent Covid-19 testing and had been isolated though they are still reporting for work while waiting for the results.

Garganera himself also did the tandem testing, a combination of the rapid anti-body test and RT-PCR where he found out that he still has antibody.

“Imagine 115 days na (since Garganera got Covid-19), unya positive pa akong IgG (a class of immunoglobulins), akong antibodies naa pa gihapon. Moadto kos hospital magpa-antibody count para maka-donate pa ko (plasma),” said Garganera.

Other Stats

Meanwhile, DOH-7 data showed that the cities of Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu have 66 and 95 active cases, respectively.

Mandaue City has 2,624 total number of cases as six new cases were recorded.

There was one new recovery reported bringing the total recoveries to 2,394.

Lapu-Lapu City has a total of 2,544 cases, one additional case was recorded. The total number of recoveries there is still at 2,341, as no new recoveries were recorded.

The total deaths in the cities of Cebu, Mandaue, and Lapu-Lapu, as well as Cebu Province, remained at 683, 164, 108, and 400, respectively, as no new deaths were recorded in the tri-cities and the province.

Active cases in Cebu Province are at 311. Its total number of cases is at 6,619 after it recorded 19 additional cases.

The total number of recoveries is at 5,908, 22 of these were new.

As of Wednesday, the total number of COVID-19 cases in Central Visayas is at 23,433 with 1,094 active cases, 20,965 total reported recoveries, and 1,374 total reported deaths. — Caecent Noot-Magsumbol , JMD (FREEMAN)