DOH assures third wave of COVID-19 remains manageable in C. Visayas

CEBU CITY , July 14 ------ Central Visayas is already experiencing a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic but the regional Department of Health assured the situation remains manageable. The steady increase of COVID-19 cases has been noted in the past few months but it has not caused an adverse effect on the healthcare system, said Dr. Eugenia Mercedes Cañal, cluster head of the Regional Epidemiology Surveillance Unit (RESU) in Central Visayas.

“The wave is not like the wave of zombies that happened overnight. It means a description or a pattern of peaks. Based on our epi-curve, our cases, when we made a graph, we saw a U-shape,” said Cañal. Cañal said the gradual increase of COVID-19 cases started in the last week of April. In the July 12 tally, the region logged 305 new cases, hiking the total active cases to 8,397.

Negros Oriental had the most active cases with 3,479 followed by Bohol and Cebu City with 2,086 and 1,133, respectively. Overall, a total of 76,787 confirmed COVID-19 cases were recorded in the region, including 66,102 recoveries and 2,288 deaths. “Our cases here are slowly increasing. And thus, it created another peak. That’s what we called a wave but we don’t necessarily mean that when there’s a wave, thousands of cases were made overnight,” she said.

Cañal emphasized that there may be a new wave of infections but there is no reason to panic, saying the healthcare system in the region remained at safe levels. “I don’t like to inject fear and panic to the community and to the public. In fact, our critical care utilization rates are still within healthy levels. The outbreak is still manageable but then again, we shall not let our guards down,” she said.

Source: mb.com.ph