DAVAO CITY – The Covid-19 positivity rate here increased to 5.6 percent as of Wednesday, July 13, an official of the local Covid-19 Task Force said.
Dr. Michelle Schlosser, spokesperson for the Davao City Covid-19 Task Force, said the recent positivity rate, which is now above the acceptable threshold of five percent set by the World Health Organization, rose from the previous average ranging between one and 1.5 percent in the past weeks.
Schlosser said people should strictly adhere to the minimum public health standards (MPHS), encouraging them to get their primary doses of anti-Covid-19 vaccines and their booster doses.
Based on the data released by the Department of Health (DOH)-Davao Region, this city reported 72,908 total cases as of July 12, 147 of which are active.
Schlosser said despite seeing an uptick in Covid-19 cases, she said the situation is not yet alarming.
She said the city government hopes that Dabawenyos would continue to follow the existing health protocols to prevent the transmission of the highly infectious virus.
Schlosser said the implementation of tight measures, as what the city government did to put the previous Covid-19 surges under control, would cause havoc on the local economy and the livelihood of the public.
She said that health officials hope that the positivity rate would not reach a point where it would compel the city government to reimplement hard measures to contain the spread of the disease.
She said the city does not want its status to be reverted to higher alert level status. The city is currently under Alert Level 1 until July 15.
Schlosser said the city government wants to keep the balance between safety of the people and economy.
In a text message, she said the city is constructing temporary treatment and monitoring facilities (TTMFs) in Paquibato and Marilog Districts in preparation for a possible surge of Covid-19 cases.
“We are always preparing for the worst all the time,” she said.
She said that the existing isolation facilities are not yet fully occupied.
“At the moment, we have no problem with our TTMF. In preparation for the worst situation, we are constructing TTMFs. However, if our newly-constructed TTMFs are not enough, definitely, we will reactivate our previous strategies such as renting hotels and other strategies,” she said.