EV has high positivity rate
TACLOBAN CITY — At least one in every four specimens sent for testing in Covid-19 laboratories in Eastern Visayas (EV) turned out positive of the dreaded virus, the latest report of the Department of Health (DoH) in the region shows.
In its Covid-19 daily update, DoH-8 reported on Monday that positivity rate of samples tested in laboratories reached 26.93 percent, more than four times higher than the 5 percent threshold set by the World Health Organizationm (WHO). WHO recommends more aggressive testing to determine the extent of infection for a positivity rate higher than the threshold.
The 26.93 percent positivity rate recorded on Monday was the highest since the Covid-19 pandemic started. It came two days after the region reported 297 cases on Saturday, which is the highest in daily cases.
The DoH-8 reported 108 new cases out of 401 laboratory samples tested in the two Covid-19 laboratories in the region — the Eastern Visayas Regional Covid-19 Testing Center and the Divine Word Hospital Virology Laboratory. The tests were conducted on Sunday, thus only few samples were tested.
The Regional Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (RIATF) in Eastern Visayas has directed all local government units to intensify the implementation and observance of minimum health standards to prevent the further spread of infection in the region.
The RIATF issued the resolution after DoH-8 confirmed the entry of the highly transmittable UK-variant of Covid-19 in the region based on confirmatory testing of the Philippine Genome Center.
The RIATF noted that despite the entry of “variant of concern” in the region, there are still reports of violation and non-observance of health protocol and local government units seemingly neglect to enforce them.
The whole of EV is presently under modified general community quarantine due to consistently small number of daily cases since the start of the year until mid of May.
But since the third week of May, the number of daily cases have been gradually increasing, which health officials attribute to super spreader events like fiesta celebrations and family gatherings.