A scene inside Cebu City Jail during a greyhound operation last February 29, 2020. | CDN Digital file photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines — There are now 209 prisoners and jail officers of the Cebu City Jail who tested positive of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella announced on Saturday, April 25, that they found out 63 more from the city jail had been infected with the disease.
This development brings the total number of COVID-19 patients from the city’s penal facility located at Barangay Kalunasan to 209.
“The Cebu City Health Department is closely coordinating with the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) in adopting immediate measures to address the rising COVID-19 cases inside the jail facility,” Labella said on Facebook.
Meanwhile, Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia, in a separate live teleconference with the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) revealed that a total of 163 samples from Cebu City Jail were tested for Saturday.
The Department of Health in Central Visayas (DOH – 7) has already recommended for jail authorities to continue doing contact tracing, and isolate COVID-19 patients from the rest of the jail population.
Cebu City Jail has 6,604 inmates.
But as a facility designed only to accommodate less than 550 prisoners, it now has a congestion rate of 1,106 percent.
The DOH -7 said congestion was a major factor in the transmission of COVID-19 there./dbs