55 Pasay barangays under lockdown

City government asking DOH for assistance

MANILA, Philippines — Fifty-five barangays in Pasay have been placed under localized enhanced community quarantine (ECQ), the city government said yesterday.

“As of this afternoon, we have 55 communities under localized ECQ. We had 21 additional communities with three or more COVID-19 cases,” Miko Llorca, a nurse under the city’s epidemiology and surveillance unit, said in a television interview.

Llorca said most of the active cases in Pasay are those living in the same household.

The city government has also requested assistance from the Department of Health as the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise.

Llorca said the city government needs help with genome sequencing of samples taken from the patients to determine if these cases involve COVID-19 variants.

The city government “expected” the number to rise after it intensified contact tracing efforts, he added.

The city government earlier placed 34 communities under lockdown due to the surge in active COVID-19 cases ahead of the expected arrival of COVID-19 vaccines.

As of Feb. 22, the city has 395 active cases. Since the national government started tallying COVID-19 cases last year, the city has reported 7,650 confirmed cases, 7,059 recoveries and 196 deaths.