Zamboanga City (Image from Google Maps)
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Zamboanga del Sur, Philippines — Health authorities here confirmed detecting 17 cases of the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV2 in this city, with all of the patients already recovered.
Dr. Dulce Miravite, city health officer, said on Tuesday that the Department of Health (DOH) and the Philippine Genome Center had released the results of genome sequencing on Feb. 3.
The results confirmed 17 cases of Omicron in the city — 14 were in the community, two authorized persons outside residence (Apor), and one a returning overseas Filipino.
Miravite said all the patients had already recovered.
She also said active COVID-19 cases were also noted to be gradually decreasing in the city.
“There are more recoveries even as lesser new infections are being reported,” she said.
As of Feb. 7 this year, 67 new COVID-19 cases and one death were reported in the city, bringing to 1,961 the total number of active cases here and to 1,168 the total number of COVID-19 deaths.
Miravite said 50 COVID-19 deaths had been reported in the city barely two months since the start of 2022.
Cases, however, were going down, she said.
The 1,961 cases posted on Feb. 7, was a 13.05% decline from the 2,217 active cases posted the day before and a 12.5% decrease from the 2,208 total active cases posted on Feb. 5.
Health officials said they were hoping that the downward trend would continue so that the city — still currently under Alert Level 3 — would finally be placed under a lower alert level status so that it could eventually ease travel restrictions.
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