The Davao City Covid-19 Task Force is not ready to declare the city as Covid-19 surge-free because its positivity rate is still at 19.7 percent.
In an interview with the Davao City Disaster Radio on Wednesday, Covid-19 Task Force Spokesperson Dr. Michelle Schlosser said that the city’s positivity rate may have lowered down to 19.7 percent but this does not indicate that the city is already surge-free.
“Remember pag surge niabot ta sa 50 percent positivity karon naa nata sa 19.7 percent nalang covering last week. Kung mag-continue pagbaba makaingon gyud ta na we have been freed from the surge. Pero gaya ng ginabalik-balik nato even if nagbaba ang atoang positivity rate this much ang atoang acceptable positivity rate would still be 5 percent. Diha gyud ta makaingon nga wala nay surge (Remember when the surge started we reached 50 percent positivity rate and now we are at 19.7 percent covering last week. If this downtrend continues we can say that we are free from the surge. But as I said before, even if the positivity rate is lowered, the acceptable positivity rate is five percent, [once we achieve that] that’s when we can say that that there is no more surge),” Schlosser said.
She added that an epidemiological study also states that the surge in the city may end in March.
Based on the previous reports, Davao City is placed on “Moderate Risk” for having “low” two-week growth rate and “high” average daily attack rate.
Schlosser said that among the factors that are considered in the decreasing cases are the strategies that the city has been implementing in the evolving Covid pandemic.
These include the Prevention, Detection, Isolation, Treat, and Reintegration (PDITR), the issuance of executive orders, campaign on minimum public health standards, strengthened isolation, swabbing, quarantine, and the opening of the Covid-19 Cluster Clinic.
She also cited the people’s cooperation with the Covid-19 strategies.
“Dako og papel ang cooperation and sense of responsibility sa mga tao ang Davao City. Grabe ang katas-on sa vaccination rollout that could be one of the factors ( The cooperation and sense of responsibility of the people of Davao played a big role. We have a high vaccination rollout, that could be one of the factors),” she said.
Schlosser said that the city continues to enhance and improve measures in the battle against Covid-19, and this includes the rollout of the booster dose to Dabawenyos. CIO
