From left to right: Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes, DOH-7 director Dr. Jaime Bernadas, and Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella. | file photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines — The highly urbanized cities of Cebu including Cebu City, Mandaue City, and Lapu-Lapu City are appealing to the Interagency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) to keep the three cities under the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).
In a joint statement, the three local government units (LGUs) said that with the ongoing mass strategic testing for the Project Balik Buhay, the cities expect an upcoming surge of identified Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID) cases.
This is expected because 90 percent of the positive cases recorded in Cebu are asymptomatic cases, which have more tendencies to spread the virus.
Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella, Mandaue City Mayor Jonas Cortes, and Lapu-Lapu Mayor Junard Chan has sent their appeal to the IATF-EID on Tuesday evening, May 12, 2020, to maintain the Cities of Lapu-Lapu and Mandaue under ECQ just like Cebu City.
The IATF-EID has recommended placing Cebu City under Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine (MECQ) because of its volume of cases.
Mandaue City and Lapu-Lapu City was recommended to graduate to General Community Quarantine just like the rest of Cebu Province.
“To shift to General Community Quarantine would be easier on the part of the government. However, our moral obligation entails that we have to make the difficult decisions to ascertain that majority of our constituents remain healthy and COVID-19 free,” said the three mayors.
“The most effective way to flatten the curve is to Test, Trace, and Treat. We are still in the early stage and tracing, and we maintain our stand from day one until and unless constituents are tested, we should not ease restrictions. Tonight, the Cities of Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu have formally appealed to the IATF-EID that to be under the same restrictions for the Enhanced Community Quarantine,” they added.
The three mayors asked the public to continue getting tested as the data would help the city governments asses the situation.
The three cities are now nearing the end of the strategic testing. The results of this are expected to be released by May 15. / rcg