AND then there were two.
There used to be four barangays in Cebu City that seem to have escaped from the clutches of the coronavirus pandemic since the disease was first detected in the city on March 29, 2020.
These were Barangays Buot, Paril, Tabunan and Tagbao.
That all changed after the holidays.
On Jan. 7, 2021, Buot reported its first case followed by Tagbao earlier this month.
That leaves Paril and Tabunan as the only barangays in the city to have never reported any case since the health crisis began, according to City Councilor Joel Garganera, deputy chief implementer of the City’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC).
Based on the EOC data, only 13 barangays have had no active cases for the past two weeks, down sharply from 55 of the city’s 80 barangays that were declared cleared of coronavirus cases four days before the end of 2020.
From Feb. 3 to Feb. 12, Barangay Guadalupe logged the most number of active cases with 144. It is followed by Barangay Labangon with 91 cases, Lahug with 89 cases, Tisa with 83 cases and Talamban with 59 cases.
According to data from the Department of Health (DOH) 7, Cebu City had 2,917 active cases as of Saturday, Feb. 13, after recording 235 additional cases. The number of Covid-19 fatalities is 712, up from 702 on Feb. 5.
Patients who experience mild to moderate symptoms have been spread out and quarantined in various barangay isolation centers, the New Normal Oasis for Adaptation and a Home complex, the Cebu City Quarantine Center and the Bayanihan Cebu IEC Field Center.
The rest of the active cases who have not developed symptoms or are asymptomatic are undergoing quarantine in hotels and pension houses accredited by the DOH 7.
Covid infections in the city peaked in June and July last year, which prompted President Rodrigo Duterte to revert its quarantine status to enhanced community quarantine from the more relaxed general community quarantine.
Infections slowed down in the later part of the year. In the beginning of December, the city logged new daily cases in the single digits.
With the further easing of quarantine restrictions, Mayor Edgardo Labella and Garganera had reminded the public to strictly comply with health and safety protocols.
Nationwide, the DOH on Saturday, reported 1,960 new cases of coronavirus infection.
As of 4 p.m. Saturday, the total case count in the Philippines went up to 547,255, including 34,967 active cases.
There were 12 additional mortalities, the lowest in nearly a month. These raised the death toll from coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) to 11,507, but brought down the case fatality rate to 2.1 percent.
A total of 26,313 tests for Sars-CoV-2 were conducted in 24 hours until noon of Feb. 12, of which 1,413 or 5.4 percent yielded positive results. (JJL, HDT / SunStar Philippines)