Decreasing trend in October, increasing trend in November

CEBU, Philippines — The COVID-19 cases in Cebu City showed opposing trends in the last two months – a steadily decreasing pattern in October and an increasing pattern in November, the city’s Emergency Operations Center said.

Data from the Department of Health (DOH)- 7 showed that October ended with 151 active cases but this doubled and reached 318 almost a month later as of November 25.

Earlier, officials attributed the increase to Halloween activities and EOC’s Deputy Chief Implementer, Councilor Joel Garganera, is expecting the worst come December owing to Christmas-related gatherings.

He said Metro Manila mayors may have anticipated unregulated, unnecessary gatherings during the holidays when they asked that their local government units continue be placed under general community quarantine until the end of the year.

The EOC underscored a wide gap between “compliance and complacency,” as far as adherence to minimum health protocols is concerned.

In an interview with The Freeman earlier, Garganera said Cebu City residents may have become complacent after seeing that the city has managed to control the spread of the virus, especially in October when the city registered only single digits in new cases.

Based on EOC’s monitoring from November 13 to November 25, at least 120 of the new (index) cases are asymptomatic while 30 are symptomatic. Meanwhile, majority of close contact cases are asymptomatic, as well as second generation contacts.

The EOC is expanding its contact tracing to include second generation contacts as part of intervention measures.

Fortunately, only four deaths were recorded in November.

In a related development, Garganera announced that the conversion of the gym in Barangay Tejero into a temporary holding facility for quarantine protocol violators is almost complete. Two other barangay gyms will also be converted for the same purpose.

Garganera said earlier they decided to open temporary holding facilities to decongest police detention facilities.

In a separate development, Mayor Edgardo Labella promised that the contact tracers and members of Task Force Kasaligan who did not get their monthly salary yet will have it by December.

He said he immediately called the attention of Dr. Jeffrey Ibones, officer in charge of the City Health Department, to act on the problem when he learned about it.

 “I immediately called and directed Dr. Jeffrey Ibones nga ipadali gyud dayon ang mga sweldo sa contact tracers and nag-process ana is the City Health Office and Task Force Kasaligan. First or second week of December, mahatag na,” Labella said.

(I immediately called and directly Dr. Jeffrey Ibones to fast track the processing of the salary for contact tracers. It’s the City Health Office and Task Force Kasaligan that are processing it. It will be available by the first or second week of December.) — JMO (FREEMAN)