Cebu City mayor expects more Covid-19 recoveries

MAYOT EDGARDO  Labella is expecting a rise in the number of "laboratory-negative" patients here who have recovered from the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).   

In a press conference on Tuesday, Labella bared that 100 patients who have recovered would be placed by the Cebu City Health Department (CCHD) for a second confirmatory retest.

Following the Department of Health (DOH) protocol, the CCHD requires patients who have tested negative during a retest while in isolation to undergo a second test before they are certified to be healed of the virus.

Asymptomatic patients who were separated from their community enjoyed good meals and a double dose of vitamin C to ensure their fast recovery, he said.

Labella, meanwhile, said the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases continue to rise in the city as a result of unrelenting contact tracing and massive testing in high-risk villages.

He assured Cebuanos that the city government is on the right track in its efforts to contain Covid-19 by identifying the areas where the viral disease is concentrated.

Labella said despite the rise in Covid-19 cases in the city, the CCHD observed that only 10 percent of the total figure have manifested symptoms of the viral disease.

“It should be known that despite the current status in the City of Cebu where we have the highest number of cases (in Region 7 - Central Visayas), but 90 percent of the positive cases are asymptomatic,” he said in Cebuano.

While the DOH requires home quarantine for asymptomatic Covid-19 patients, Labella said the city government transferred residents who had tested positive for the coronavirus to public schools converted into Barangay Isolation Centers (BIC).

“Because some of those (who had) tested positive are living in heavily populated housing neighborhood, we need to isolate them separate from their community to avoid further infection,” he said.

Labella noted the need for contact tracing and massive swab specimen collection to determine the concentration of the virus and properly address the Covid-19 situation in the city.

On Monday, the CCHD recorded 188 new Covid-19 cases here, bringing the total number of cases to 1,080, affecting 32 of the city’s 80 villages.

Labella said massive testing could be done with the 34,000 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing kits purchased by the city government, as well as the additional 10,000 kits donated by the Office of the President to the city government through the office of Presidential Assistant for the Visayas, Secretary Michael Lloyd Dino. (