Lapu-Lapu City records five more: Cebu City Jail logs 123 new COVID cases

CEBU, Philippines — Cebu City recorded 139 new coronavirus positive cases yesterday, the most number of cases logged in a single day. Of this, 123 are from the Cebu City Jail.

The other cases are from Barangay Labangon, nine; Barangay Luz, three; C. Padilla Street, one; Barangay Kasambagan, one; Barangay Inayawan, one; and Cebu City Health Office, one.

The city clarified that the recorded patient from the city health office is actually not an employee of the office but a patient who was tested at one of the cluster clinics. The city is verifying which barangay the patient is from.

Mayor Edgardo Labella said the new numbers are a result of the mass testing across Cebu City.

As of yesterday, Cebu City recorded a total of 312 positive cases.

City Jail

The new numbers also brought to 128 the total of cases from the city jail.

Labella said, “The individuals who are identified as direct contact of these positive cases are being isolated and given treatment.”

The city health office collected a total of 199 samples from the jail as of yesterday.

Stricter measures have been implemented at the jail after it recorded its first four cases – two jail officer and two inmates, one of whom has passed away.

The jail’s spokesperson, Jail Senior Insp. Jay Ylanan, has said that the jail officers who tested positive did not have any contact with the inmates because they were both assigned outside when they implemented a lockdown in March.

When the lockdown was implemented, jail officers were assigned separately inside and outside the facility. Those inside could not go out and those outside could not go in.

The Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) and city health personnel are now investigating how the virus has infected the inmates.

As a piece of good news, the newborn who tested positive for COVID-19 in Cebu City last Tuesday was found negative of the virus after a subsequent test, Labella announced yesterday.

The baby’s mother also tested negative.

The baby was described as the youngest person infected by the virus in Central Visayas.

Lapu-Lapu

In Lapu-Lapu City, Mayor Junard Chan ordered a lockdown and quarantine of families who had direct contact with residents who tested positive for COVID-19.

As of Wednesday, April 22, the city logged five new positive cases, bringing the number to 18.

Chan said the five new cases are all female: a 25-year-old from Barangay Babag; a 63-year-old from Barangay Gun-ob; a 53-year-old and a 49-year-old from Barangay Looc; and a 29-year-old from Barangay Marigondon.

Chan said City Crisis Management Team has already disinfected the patients’ houses and subjected affected households under preemptive containment, including those who had direct contact with the patients.

Last Sunday, Chan issued Executive Order (EO) 2020-048-C instituting stricter border control in the city’s territorial jurisdiction. The stricter rules are meant to contain local transmission, as eight of Lapu-Lapu’s 30 barangays have already recorded cases.

Sitio Zapatera

Back in Cebu City, 63 of the residents of Sitio Zapatera in Barangay Luz have been pulled out of the sitio and transferred to the Barrio Luz Elementary School, which now serves as an isolation facility.

The patients were transferred evening on April 21.

Labella said there are still residents who are under home quarantine but they are reportedly being monitored closely. They also live in houses that are not built close to each other.

Councilor David Tumulak said that of those transferred to the school, 50 are positive asymptomatic while the 13 are positive symptomatic or those showing mild symptoms. The symptomatic and asymptomatic patients are housed in separate buildings.

Tumulak said it was not easy transferring the patients since some of them were hesitant. He said city health personnel are visiting the patients who remain at their homes to explain the situation to them.

It was Thursday last week when Zapatera logged 84 cases in one day.

Labella also announced yesterday that isolation centers are being established in all 80 barangays in Cebu City for those who will test positive asymptomatic. Barangays without schools will be clustered in the city center.

Labella said those who will be placed at isolation facilities are those with “mild and moderate cases” while those who will be brought to the hospitals are those with “serious and severe cases.”

“These categories are being spelled out by the Department of Health and the interagency task force,” Labella said.  JMO (FREEMAN)