THE daily positivity rate of Covid-19 cases in Cebu City is within the five percent threshold set by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The Cebu City Emergency Operations Center (EOC) has noted this new development for two consecutive days.
On April 26, 2021, Cebu City recorded a 3.81 percent positivity rate; on April 27, the city registered a 4.38 percent positivity rate.
City Councilor Joel Garganera, deputy chief implementer of the EOC, said it has been a long while since the city’s positivity rate is beyond the WHO’s threshold of five percent.
Garganera was not able to specify when was the last time the EOC recorded a positivity rate below five percent.
When the cases of Covid-19 in Cebu City went down in the last months of 2020, the city was logging in a daily positivity rate within the WHO’s threshold, but this changed when the city experienced an increasing trend of cases in the early months of 2021.
The EOC reported that the city had 609 active Covid-19 cases as of April 27.
The total positivity rate in the city was at 9.45 percent out of the 245,270 individuals tested as of April 27.
Two more barangays in Cebu City have not reported Covid-19 cases for the past 10 days, making the total number of barangays with no recorded cases from April 18 to April 27 to 23.
There are 57 barangays which have current active transmission.
The total cases in the city reached 23,179 with 21,729 recoveries and 841 mortalities as of April 27.
Vaccine supplies
As to the halted vaccination campaign in Central Visayas, the resumption of the inoculation of adults who are 60 years old and above remains a waiting game as the Department of Health (DOH) 7 said on Wednesday, April 28, that it has yet to receive additional Covid-19 vaccine supplies.
Dr. Mary Jean Loreche, DOH 7 spokesperson, said the number of vaccine doses that Central Visayas received was still at 178,560 (30,000 doses were AstraZeneca vaccine, while the rest were Sinovac vaccines), and all of which were already distributed to various vaccination centers regionwide.
The DOH 7 had earlier said that it was expecting to receive an additional batch of vaccine supplies this week after some vaccination efforts, such as that of Cebu City, were stopped because of the lack of vaccine supply.
Loreche said the recipients of the first dose of Sinovac are assured of getting the second dose; however, the DOH 7 is still waiting for AstraZeneca supplies for the second dose.
Loreche said the second doses will be administered in the middle or by the end of May, and the DOH 7 is looking forward to the arrival of the vaccine supplies ahead of the schedule.
Inoculation
As of March 31, 2021, 87,220 individuals, or 66.2 percent of the region’s total eligible population for priority A1, have already received the first doses of the vaccine based on the Central Visayas Covid-19 Vaccination Summary Report on Tuesday, April 27.
However, only 30,197 healthcare workers have received the second doses. There were 8,533 senior citizens (priority A2 population) in the region who were already inoculated with the first doses of the Covid-19 vaccine.
The number is just 1.49 percent of the 572,626 partial number of pre-listed senior citizens for vaccination.
Based on the April 20 masterlist for the senior citizens’ vaccination, 157,705 senior citizens were registered in Bohol; 168,832 in Cebu; 128,025 in Negros Oriental; 11,322 in Siquijor; 88,000 in Cebu City; 3,500 in Lapu Lapu City; and 15,242 in Mandaue City.
Of the 8,533 vaccinated senior citizens, 1,094 were from Cebu Province; four, Negros Oriental; 577, Siquijor; 4,924, Cebu City; 433, Lapu-Lapu City; and 1,501, Mandaue City. (JJL/WBS)