Cagayan de Oro registered a single case of COVID-19 on Monday, October 11, the city’s lowest since the second quarter of the year, when it started seeing a runaway outbreak of infections.

Department of Health (DOH) data showed Cagayan de Oro only had one COVID-19 case on Monday, October 11, something that health officials credited to the accelerated vaccination rollout.

City hall, however, counted four newly documented cases on Monday, but it was still the lowest so far since April, when Cagayan de Oro started seeing what officials said was the third wave of infections since it felt the effects of the pandemic in 2020.

Cagayan de Oro and Northern Mindanao had one of the highest number of single-day COVID-19 cases in Mindanao, next to Davao City and the Davao region.

Mayor Oscar Moreno, in high spirits, ordered an oversized pizza for his staff to celebrate, but cautioned against complacency.

“Let’s proceed with caution. We cannot afford to throw caution in the wind. The virus is waiting for us to be complacent and make the wrong move,” Moreno told an online news conference.

Moreno told Rappler that the downtrend was noted three weeks ago although officials had foreseen the decline four weeks earlier.

Monday’s single case was also the lowest in nine days, based on DOH’s record.

DOH data showed Cagayan de Oro registered 37 cases on October 3, 21 on October 4, 51 on October 5, 36 on October 6, 62 on October 7, 15 on October 8, 11 on October 9, and 12 on October 10. 

Until late August, the city registered three-digit single-day figures that nearly reached 1,000.

The city that once had the most number of cases in Northern Mindanao only accounted for 0.8% of the region’s DOH-documented cases on Monday.

Misamis Oriental had the most number of single-day newly documented COVID-19 infections at 33, followed by Misamis Occidental, 31; Lanao del Norte, 24; Bukidnon, 20; Iligan City, 9; and Camiguin Island, 6.

Still, the figures were a far cry from the daily three-digit cases that made Northern Mindanao breach the 1,000 mark on several occasions in recent months, said Emiliano Galban Jr., DOH regional spokesman.

Northern Mindanao was no longer in the DOH’s list of regions of concern as of October 10. 

Dr. Teodoro Yu Jr., a medical officer at the Cagayan de Oro City Health Office, said the accelerated vaccination rollout, the two-day average time detection of those who contracted COVID-19, and their extraction and isolation factored in the downtrend. – Rappler.com