CEBU CITY, Philippines — The number of active Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases in Cebu City has dropped to 1,389 and the number of new cases has seen its lowest yet in the last month with only seven new cases recorded on August 17, 2020.
Councilor Joel Garganera, the Emergency Operation Center (EOC) czar, attributes this drop to the mastery of the city government and the barangays in controlling community transmission in the sitios.
He said there are now 34 out of 80 barangays with no community transmission reported.
The granular lockdowns have been reduced to household lockdowns and the intensified contact tracing yield lower positive results each day.
The EOC is monitoring 19 positive cases of the COVID-19 as of August 18, 2020 that are within the 14-day period while the rest of more than 1,300 cases were recorded beyond two weeks ago.
“This is a very welcome development, but this is not a time to be complacent, we should remain vigilant,” said Garganera.
Out of the active cases with the 14-day period, the EOC noted that nine were from households, six from workplaces, and three from violators.
The councilor noted there is a rising trend in community transmission within workplaces that establishments must be vigilant of.
This was based on the data presented by Rauell John Santos, the technical coordinator for COVID-19 response for the World Health Organization (WHO).
He noted that there was a slight rise on COVID-19 cases from workplace transmissions being brought home from August 10, 2020 to August 17, 2020.
With this, Garganera urged businesses to uphold the quarantine protocols strictly among the employees and clients.
Even with social distancing, the employees must wear masks and face shields to avoid workplace transmission.
He said he will suggest to Retired Major General Melquiades Feliciano and Mayor Edgardo Labella to require employees to wear face shields in all establishments, an echo of the mandate of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).
Furthermore, he wants people riding private shuttles to wear face shields because the virus does not discriminate between public and private vehicles.
“I think we will refer this to the mayor and it should be an executive order,” he said. /bmjo