By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga
The Provincial Health Office (PHO) in Negros Occidental said there is no surge in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases in the province despite the recent uptick in cases.
As of Friday, August 5, Negros Occidental has 145 active COVID-19 cases, bringing the total number of cases in the province to 41,859 since March of 2020 with 39,732 recoveries and 1,981 deaths.
PHO head Dr. Ernell Tumimbang said there are many indicators to say that there is an increase in COVID-19 cases.
While he admitted that there is a double digit increase of cases, it is still not a surge.
Tumimbang said that one factor that should be looked at amid the continuous increase of COVID-19 cases is hospital bed utilization rate, adding that if it goes up it means that many patients are admitted in hospitals because they have severe cases.
Currently, these active cases are under home quarantine because they are vaccinated, he said.
“They are reported because they were monitored by our surveillance unit,” he said.
Tumimbang added that they are screening hospital admissions through rapid antigen tests if the patient is already vaccinated against COVID-19.
However, he said if the patient is unvaccinated he or she will have to undergo a reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test before being admitted.
Meanwhile, Tumimbang said booster shot rates are still low in Negros Occidental.
He said the public are already confident after getting two primary COVID-19 shots and businesses are also opening up.
Tumimbang added there is a need to ramp up the advocacy that there is still a need to get booster shots even if the province is already under Alert Level 2./DGB, WDJ