MAYOR Benjamin Magalong has declared the surge driven by the Omicron variant is now under control after 28 days.
The mayor, during the management committee meeting on February 8, said this was based on the graph indicators and metrics plotting the city’s COVID-19 cases.
As with the peak in cases caused by the Delta variant late last year, which the city managed to bring down after one month and 17 days, the mayor assessed the city’s response to the Omicron wave as adequate.
The mayor said the city’s case reproduction number (Rt) went above 1.0 starting December 23 and was back to below 1.0 after 28 days.
“We were proactive and we prepared well. We had good teamwork and a supportive community,” the mayor said.
Cases during the Omicron surge which jumped to an average of 87 daily during week January 2 – 8, drastically increased to 403 from January 9 – 15, and peaked to 637 a day in the week of January 16 – 22 before going down to 334 daily in the week of January 23 – 29.
City Health Officer Dr. Rowena Galpo, in her report on February 8, said average daily cases further went down to 113 in the week of January 30 – Feb. 5.
The city’s epidemic risk level was down to moderate risk starting the other week.
The case positivity rate also decreased to 24.42 percent from the previous week’s 39.7 percent. The highest positivity rate reached by the city during this peak was at 48 percent from January 9-15.
The weekly infection growth rate is now 0.47 percent or less than 1 which means that transmission has started to decrease. This went as high as 7.71 last January 2 – 8 and 6.9 on January 9-15 before going down to 0.77 on Jan. 23-29.
The average daily attack rate (ADAR) plunged to 35/100,000 population from 75/100,000 and the two-week growth rate decreased to -73 percent from as high as 187 percent.
The daily average test was 606 in the past two weeks.
The hospital care utilization rate went down to 54.42 percent while isolation facility bed occupancy further decreased to 14.91 percent from 30.14 percent. – Aileen P. Refuerzo
