Cebu Governor Garcia discusses the measures against COVID-19 during today’s (March 9) multisectoral meeting at the Capitol. | Rosalie O. Abatayo
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia is concerned that recently confirmed cases of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) came from countries that are not covered by the temporary travel restriction of the national government.
In a multisectoral meeting at the Capitol on Monday, March 9, 2020, Garcia raised the concern to Director Jaime Bernadas, Department of Health in Central Visayas (DOH-7), after the latter read President Rodrigo Duterte’s declaration of a Public Health Emergency.
“It is striking because those cases, the foreigners, [they came from the places with] flights we did not ban,” Garcia said.
10 COVID-19 cases
On Sunday, March 8, the health department announced four more confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country, raising the number of confirmed cases to 10.
The new cases included patients that had travel history to Taiwan and the United States.
In a report of the Inquirer, the DOH identified the seventh case is a 38-year-old Taiwanese male.
This patient came into contact with another Taiwanese national who tested positive for COVID-19 in Taiwan after he visited the Philippines.
The eighth case is a 32-year-old Filipino male who recently traveled to Japan while the ninth case is an 86-year-old American man who has recently visited the United States and South Korea.
The tenth case, on the other hand, is a 57-year-old Filipino man who did not recently travel outside the country.
Bernadas, in the same meeting, confirmed that there were patients with international travel history that they were considering as patients under investigation (PUIs) for the coronavirus disease 2019.
Bernadas said the DOH-7 went beyond the protocol of their central office in tracing patients that might have been infected by the COVID-19.
DOH protocol only include those places covered by the country’s temporary travel restrictions.
The health official, however, said the number of patients coming from areas outside their protocol were not reported to their Central Office./dbs