Davao City Covid-19 Task Force spokesperson Dr. Michelle Schlosser said in a radio interview on Wednesday, March 23, that as of March 20, the city’s positivity rate was at 1.8 percent. This is below the acceptable rate of five percent, which signifies that the Covid-19 cases in a certain area are manageable.
Schlosser said that as of March 20, the city has recorded a total of 94 active cases, wherein majority is asymptomatic and mild cases.
She also said the city had recently recorded single digit daily recorded new cases. For March 22, the city only recorded three new cases. The last time the city recorded single digit new cases was around the second half of December 2021 and January 1, 2022.
A total of 91 cases were recorded for the past one to two weeks.
“That’s the reason why gadula sa one to two percent atong positivity rate (our positivity is only around one to two percent),” she said in an interview on 87.5 FM Davao City Disaster Radio.
Meanwhile, according to the March 21 to 26 Covid-19 Barangay Risk Classification posted on Monday, March 21, no barangay from the total 182 were classified as critical risk and high risk.
Barangay 3-A was classified as moderate risk, and Centro (San Juan, Agdao) is classified as low risk. The rest of the 180 barangays are minimal risks.
The two-week growth rate of the entire city was at -70.07, which is considered low, while the average daily attack rate was at 0.34, still classified as low.
Schlosser clarified, though, that the city’s contact tracing efforts still continue despite the significant decrease of cases and the continuous relaxation of some Covid-19 restrictions under the Alert Level 1 classification.
“We still do but pag-close contact ka (only if you are a closed contact), based sa atong (on our) IATF [Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases] guidelines for the quarantine and isolation protocol, we only swab those closed contacts na (who are) symptomatic,” she said.
“If they remain to be asymptomatic, all they have to do is complete their quarantine period, then pwede na sila sa ilang (they can continue with their) usual activity,” she added.
She also said their surveillance to persons manifesting influenza-like illnesses is still running, and that these people should be swabbed.
“Walay pagbaba sa atong stratehiya (There is no easing of our strategies). The only reason why baba atong cases because baba gyud ang atong case (our cases are down because it shows that there is indeed a downtrend of cases),” the official said.
But she cautioned the public to continue to abide with the minimum health protocols.
She said only the social distancing protocol was lifted but the mandatory wearing of face masks remains.
“Probably, gitanggal sya kay gi-lift naman ang social distancing pero sa EO [Executive Order] 11 magpabilin man gihapon ang face mask. Siguro gi associate nila ang dili na mag face mask kay gitanggal na mga signages. Dili naman pud gud applicable kay giwala naman ang social distancing (The signages were probably removed because social distancing was already lifted but EO 11 emphasized the wearing of face masks as mandatory. People might have thought that the non-wearing of a face mask is okay since the signages were removed. But the signages are no longer applicable as social distancing is not mandatory anymore),” Schlosser said.
Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio in a radio interview on Monday, March 21, predicted that the city might be experiencing another surge brought by the BA.2 sub-variant of the Omicron variant.
“Ingon sila this will come in about two months, but akong prediction in about a month muabot ang surge sa Covid-19 diri sa atoa (They said the surge will come in about two months, but my prediction is the Covid-19 surge will arrive in about a month),” she said.
Davao City is currently under Alert Level 1 until March 31.
