The Quezon City government has reported that 637 of the 640 evacuees or 99.5 percent who are currently being monitored has tested negative for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Only three individuals or 0.5 percent were tested positive and were taken to community-care facilities for immediate medical attention.
Mayor Joy Belmonte welcomed this development and credited it to the strict monitoring and hard work of the city’s health and barangay workers.
“We are happy to report that our city was able to control the situation despite the high possibility of having an outbreak in our shelters,” she said.
Dr. Rolando Cruz, chief of the City Epidemiology and Disease Surveillance Unit (CESU), said the city’s health workers will continue to monitor the health status of the remaining families in the shelter.
“All results of those who manifested symptoms and swabbed were already released. But we will remain alert and ready in case anyone will show symptoms again,” he said.
As of Nov. 20, 364 families affected by typhoon “Ulysses” are still temporary sheltered in the city’s evacuation centers in Districts 2, 3 and 4.
As of Nov. 21, the city’s active cases dropped to 2 percent or 489 of total cases, while recoveries are at 23,236 or 95 percent of the total validated cases.
Previously, Quezon City has also recorded 4 percent positivity rate in active cases of coronavirus disease.
After weeks of continuous drop in active cases of COVID-19, the city’s positivity rate now has reached 4 percent, below the 5 percent positivity rate that the World Health Organization recommended as the threshold for re-opening the economy.
For the week of Nov. 5-11, OCTA Research group has noted the 4 percent positivity rate from the 6 percent rate recorded in the past week from Oct. 29 to Nov. 4, according to the Quezon City Epidemiology and Surveillance Disease Unit (CESU) data.
Based on the Department of Health case reports, an average of only 65 new cases per day were recorded from Nov. 10-16 compared to the previous week’s average of 91 new cases.
“Finally, after months of continuous fight against this pandemic, our numbers show great improvements. We are hopeful that this precedes our ultimate goal of being a COVID-free city,” Belmonte said.
“We are proud of our partners in the QC local government and we congratulate them for their hard work has been paying off. With Mayor Joy and her team’s determination, they were able to greatly mitigate the spread of the disease,” Dr. Ranjit Rye of OCTA Research group said.
