COVID-19 CASES ON THE DOWNTREND BUT NOT FOR LONG

June 9, 2021 – Baguio City may now be experiencing a downtrend in the number of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) afflictions but not for long.

City Health Services Officer Dr. Rowena Galpo warned that with the increase in people’s mobility, they expect the city’s positivity rate to increase in the next ten days and along with it, the critical care utilization rate to also elevate in the next two weeks.

“Even if we are on a downward trend, let’s not let our guard down. We continue to wear mask, maintain distancing and hand washing, maintain proper ventilation, avoid crowd, close conversation and confined spaces,” she stressed.

Galpo said increased people movement is expected in view of events like Fathers’ Day celebration, onset of face-to-face classes, vacation of private schools and reopening to tourists from NCR-Plus and this will result to more transmission especially if people will not adhere to the minimum public health standards.

After facing a surge in cases in the past months, the city’s cases showed signs of decline while the recovery rate increased resulting to a low hospital care and isolation unit utilization rates.

Galpo said the daily attack rate decreased from 10.2 percent to 8.8 percent while the positivity rate also went down from 9 percent to 8.31 percent.

The same decreasing trend was noted in other indicators like the 7-day moving averages of the daily attack rate which started May 31 and the daily cases which started June 1. – Aileen P. Refuerzo