Below 100 COVID-19 cases expected in Cebu City

CEBU, Philippines — The Cebu City Emergency Operations Center (EOC) looks into lowering its active cases to below a hundred soon.

This as 98 patients are already recovering and the EOC is just currently harmonizing its data with that from the Department of Health’s Regional Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit.

On top of that, Cebu City now has 46 barangays that have zeroed its transmission and have logged the lowest positivity rate at 0.4 percent, although it also had two additional deaths this month.

To further bring down the cases in Cebu City, EOC’s Deputy Chief Implementer Joel Garganera said they will be meeting with the PNP, Task Force Kasaligan, ABC, among others, for stringent enforcement of health protocols.

“Medyo (the) people start to get complacent, so we’re identifying three barangay gyms, one each from the north, south and central. They will serve as an exclusive detention area for health protocol violators,” said Garganera.

This is also to decongest detention cells at the police station that have also caused COVID-19 transmission.

Guihulngan Brgy under ECQ

Meanwhile, the city of Guihulngan in Negros Oriental has placed the entire Barangay Poblacion under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) for 14 days starting yesterday until November 8.

The city government has also requested the Provincial IATF-EID to place the entire city of Guihulngan under ECQ.

Karen Lisette Trinidad-Molas, city legal officer and a liaison officer for the local IATF, said this is in response to the rise of COVID-19 local transmission in the area.

The city now has 13 COVID-19 active cases, two of which were recorded on October 17, while 11 cases were reported last Friday.

"This is a measure to arrest the rise in local transmission. We now have 13 active cases of the virus. All of them had ample activity movement within the Poblacion. We just want to restrict the movement of people for now and strictly implement the wearing of face masks and face shields in public," said Trinidad-Molas.

Out of the 13 active cases, 10 are from Barangay Poblacion, two from Barangay Magsaysay and one from Nagsaha.

The City Hall of Guihulngan is also closed to the public from October 26 to October 30.

"We have to mass test some offices where three of the positive (cases) are city hall workers (and who) were reasonably expected to have visited. We also had to disinfect the city hall because of this," Trinidad-Morsas said.

The city government is giving food packs to those who are under quarantine and is about to give financial assistance to those who will lose their jobs because of it.

As of this writing, Trinidad-Molas said the Provincial IATF-MEID has endorsed the request to place the entire city under ECQ to the Regional IATF-MEID. — Mae Fhel Gom-os, GAN (FREEMAN)