Cebu City, once considered the epicenter of the COVID-19 epidemic in Cebu, is now considered “very low risk” by independent research group OCTA Research because of the continued decline in infections.
In an update issued Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2021, OCTA researchers led by Dr. Guido David noted that the average daily attack rate, which measures the number of new cases per 100,000 population, has gone down to 1.72 per day.
The testing positivity rate was a mere 2%, which means that only 2 of every 100 people tested were found positive for the COVID-19 virus SARS-CoV-2.
The reproduction rate, or the number of people infected by a COVID-19 patient, was also low at 0.42, or less than one.
Healthcare utilization, which measures the number of occupied beds compared to the total number of beds designated for COVID-19 patients, was 19%, or a third of the 60% threshold set by the DOH.
The researchers based their indicators on data provided in covidactnow.org.
Case bulletins by the Department of Health Central Visayas regional office (DOH 7) showed the same trend.
Since September 2021, Cebu City as well as Cebu Province and the two other highly urbanized cities (HUC) of Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu have been posting negative two-week growth rates of around -45%.
On Wednesday evening, the DOH 7 case bulletin recorded a total of 44 new infections in Cebu Province and in the three HUCs: 12 in Cebu City, 4 in Mandaue, 3 in Lapu-Lapu and 25 in Cebu Province.
The new cases in Cebu City brought its daily average to less than 15 in the last seven days from Oct. 21 to 27.
In Cebu Province, new cases averaged 18 a day in the same period while in Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu, new infections are low at less than 5 and less than 4 a day, respectively.
However, a total of 95 patients were reported to have died from COVID-19 in Cebu Province from Oct. 21 to 17.
There were also 31 deaths in Cebu City, 10 deaths in Mandaue and 42 deaths in Lapu-Lapu during the same period.
As of Oct. 27, there have been a total of 103,471 COVID-19 cases in the entire Cebu, of which 97,445 or 94% have recovered and 4,855 or 4.7% had died.
Disaggregating the data, the case fatality rate of each LGU is 3.6% for Cebu City and Mandaue, 3.4% for Lapu-Lapu, and 6.7% for Cebu Province.
There remained 293 active cases in Cebu City, 108 in Mandaue, 100 in Lapu-Lapu and 670 in Cebu Province.
Nationwide, cases have also declined to an average of 5,252 per day for the period Oct. 18 to 24, about a fourth of the 20,946 peak on Sept. 6 to 12.
The daily average is now roughly equivalent to the baseline average of 5,399 in the last week of July 2021, just before the steep rise in infections believed to have been caused by the highly contagious Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2.
DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario S. Vergeire said the country is now classified as low risk with a two-week growth rate of -48% and a moderate average daily attack rate of 5.89 cases per 100,000 individuals. (Ventures Cebu)
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