A LOCAL health official said the Covid-19 transmission in Davao City is now under control, based on the recent positivity rate in the city.
Dr. Ashley Lopez said in a radio interview that as of March 9, 2021, the city’s active cases are down to 585 out of the 13,253 reported positive Covid-19 cases since March 2020.
Out of the 585 active cases, 23 are new cases, which is a 4.6-percent rate.
He said this is lower compared to the 5-percent threshold set by the Department of Health.
“Determining na ang atong lugar sa Davao City has already (This is a determining [factor] that Davao City has already)… we’re able to control effectively the transmission we have in the community,” Lopez said in an interview on 87.5 FM Davao City Disaster Radio.
The health official previously said the city has been working on decreasing the daily positivity rate to below 5 percent to be able to consider the transmission in the city as manageable.
“Unta lang ato kini mapadayon. Kung posible, kung kaya nato (We hope to continue this development. If possible), regardless of the vaccine, kung kaya nato kini i-reduce (if we could reduce) to single digit, mas maayo (that would be better),” Lopez said.
Lopez reported that the city had started to experience a downtrend of Covid-19 cases in the first week of February this year.
This was a respite from the 2,500 peak number of active cases the city experienced from mid-October 2020 until January 2021.
The surge was attributed to the relaxed restrictions imposed in the city brought about by the modified general community quarantine (MGCQ) and the “post-holiday” surge due to gatherings and extra-curricular activities resulting in mass gatherings.
In terms of recovery rate, he said the city is now at 90.7 percent.
Lopez said the continuous decrease in active cases had also resulted in a “significant decrease” in the city’s critical care utilization rate.
He cited the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC), the city’s primary Covid-19 referral hospital, had downgraded its status from critical to high level.
“That means less than 70-percent na ang occupancy sa atong (there is already less than 70-percent occupancy rate in our) ICU [intensive care units] beds for Covid. So niubos-ubos na ang mga pasyente nga gina-ICU sa SPMC (This means there is a reduction of patients admitted to the ICU in SPMC),” the health official said.
The occupancy rate in SPMC’S isolation and ward beds intended for Covid-19 patients had also been reduced.
The occupancy rate of the 16 temporary treatment and monitoring facilities (TTMF) for patients who have mild symptoms or asymptomatic is now at 14.6 percent.
Lopez, meanwhile, clarified that the ongoing vaccine rollout in some medical workers in the city had nothing to do with the downtrend, as the vaccine’s efficacy will not be felt immediately.
Sars-CoV-2 variants
The health official, meanwhile, allayed fears of possible transmission of the new variant in the city after case surges were reported in Metro Manila and Cebu City brought about by the UK, South African variants, and other unnamed variants.
This despite recording two Dabawenyos having been tested positive for the UK variant or the B117 variant.
Lopez confirmed in February that a 10-year-old boy, who was asymptomatic and had no history of travel, became the city’s first case of B117, but the boy has since recovered. The second patient is a female returning overseas Filipino worker (ROFW) from Dubai, but was quarantined in Metro Manila.
Lopez said the city currently has no active case of the new variant.
He said the city is still vulnerable to the possible threat of the new variant. This after the city recently eased travel requirements, including presenting a negative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in compliance with the directive from the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases.
Duterte-Carpio warned in a video message that the new variants that have been detected in some parts of the country are another contributory factor for the possible “second wave” of cases in the city, which might be imported through air travel.
Lopez said the city’s biosurveillance in the Francisco Bangoy International Airport, also known as Davao International Airport, will continue.
He said there will still be standby doctors who will conduct clinical assessments to screen arriving passengers for possible symptoms linked to Covid-19.
He also said passengers traveling to the city are still required to secure their own Safe Davao QR (DQR) for contact tracing purposes.
Both Lopez and Duterte-Carpio urged the public to continuously observe the set minimum health protocols to curb the spread of the virus.
