by MANILA – Coronavirus infections in Mindanao has surpassed the number of active cases in the National Capital Region and the rest of Luzon, the Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday said.
As of June 2, there are 11,391 active COVID-19 cases in Mindanao, according to data from DOH. Metro Manila remains to be the epicenter of the virus in the country with 10,174 coronavirus patients.
Cagayan and Central Luzon “have the highest cases and fastest incline,” but a spike in new cases was also observed in Davao City and the Zamboanga region which is most likely due to more contagious foreign variants in the country and the non-observance of basic health protocols like the proper wearing of face masks and frequent hand washing, said DOH Epidemiology Bureau Director Alethea De Guzman.
“Kung pag uusapan natin yung bilis at pagtaas ng kaso, the Mindanao cases as a whole is higher than the cases we are seeing now in Luzon and NCR,” she said in an online press conference.
(If we are talking about the speed in the rise in cases, the Mindanao cases as a whole is higher than the cases we are seeing now in Luzon and NCR.)
“The core of it talaga is adhering to the compliance with the public health standards,” De Guzman said.
“[Some people think na] nakakapagod na. It’s a year, do i still want to wear face mask, do i still want to wear face shield?” she said.
Earlier this week, at least 40 employees from various departments of the Davao City Hall and Sangguniang Panglungsod (SP) tested positive for the coronavirus. Most of them worked at the first floor of the building.
Despite the rise in cases, the DOH is not keen on recommending a regional lockdown, the Health official said.
“We need to be rational in our imposition in heightened community restrictions… Mobility restriction limits contacting pero hindi naman mobility restriction lang ang kasagutan,” she said.
“We can decrease contact rate by not being part of superspreader events. We want to lessen the duration by which one person could continually infect others,” she said.
The DOH urged local government unit to impose granular lockdowns in villages or areas where there are a lot of symptomatic patients, and to immediately quarantine those who are showing symptoms of the disease.
“If we can reduce to 5 days the time of detection to the time of isolation, we can reduce by a third the number of cases,” De Guzman said.
Davao City earlier said it would ban non-essential government events in the highly-urbanized economic hub in Mindanao as active COVID-19 cases breached the 1,000 mark last week.
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