Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia has officially made her appeal to the IATF to reclassify the quarantine level of the province from a general community quarantine to a modified general community quarantine. | Screengrab from Governor Garcia’s press conference
CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu provincial government has officially submitted this Monday, June 1, 2020, its appeal for the the national Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-MEID or IATF) to reclassify the province to a modified general community quarantine (MGCQ) from the present general community quarantine (GCQ).
Governor Gwendolyn Garcia, in a press conference on Monday, said she cited Cebu province’s position on the low fatality rate of the disease in the appeal to the IATF.
Garcia, in several cases, said Cebu province was now ready to move on to further ease its restrictions based on the actual local data of COVID-19 cases.
Presently, the province has over 160 cases and 19 deaths.
Garcia also said that of the 19 COVID-19-related deaths in Cebu province, only one had “actually” died from the viral infection.
Garcia said the other 18 deaths had other health conditions and were only tagged as COVID-19 deaths because they had tested positive of the virus.
Comparing the one “actual COVID-19 death” to the over 3 million population of Cebu province, the governor said the mortality rate would only be at 0.3 per million.
While the deadline for the appeal was last May 29, Garcia said the province had only submitted its official appeal today, June 1, because of the contradicting pronouncements of national officials on the province’s status last week.
To recall, the IATF issued Resolution No. 40 last May 27 placing the entire province under GCQ.
At the time, Garcia said they were already readying their letter of appeal but held off its submission after President Duterte on the evening of May 28, said the entire province is under MGCQ.
It was already on Saturday, May 30 when IATF’s Resolution No. 41 placing the province until GCQ was released prompting the late submission, Garcia said./dbs