Confirmed cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) in Negros Oriental are now on a downward trend, a key health official of the province said on Tuesday afternoon.
In a virtual presser, Assistant Provincial Health Officer Dr. Liland Estacion, Covid-19 incident commander of the province’s Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID), said the surge in cases experienced over the past several weeks has now slowed down.
“The highest number of positive cases before the MECQ was 2,500 plus, and today we only have 1,538. So, that’s a big difference of about 1,000,” she said in English and Cebuano.
Negros Oriental is under modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) starting June 16 until Thursday, July 15.
Asked whether the MECQ would be extended, Estacion said they have not yet received an official advisory from higher authorities whether the province would be placed under a new quarantine classification.
The Central Visayas region, to which Negros Oriental belongs, however, has logged a high number of new Covid-19 cases, she noted.
Meanwhile, Estacion reported another Covid-19 variant case in the province although the patient from Barangay Novallas in Tanjay City, has already recovered.
“The collection time (of swab sample for genome sequencing) was last June 4 (2021) and the patient has now yielded a negative result but we have to forward this to Tanjay City for an investigation to determine a connection between another variant case,” she said.
The latest variant case is a B.1.1.7 or Alpha, which was first detected in the United Kingdom and is the second in the province.
Source: Philippines News Agency
