This file photo courtesy of the Cebu City PIO shows a portion of the Cebu City Jail.
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Barangay Kalunasan has reported that five persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) have proven positive for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the highest number of new cases recorded in the past month.
The barangay said in its advisory on late Friday night, November 13, 2020, that the Cebu City Jail reported the five new cases prompting the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) to conduct a subsequent contact tracing.
“Out of 124 swabbed inmates and jail guards on November 11, there are 5 inmates who are positive for coronavirus disease, as of November 13, 2020. Cebu City Jail is under the jurisdiction of Barangay Kalunasan,” said the barangay in a Facebook post.
Read: Cebu City’s active cases rise back to 209
In a separate statement, the EOC said that the inmates would now be isolated in a separate building still within the jail facility, which had already been used for previous cases.
The five new cases were a result of contact tracing from a previously recorded case in the jail facility in the past days.
“As to the 5 cases ani on Kalunasan, BJMP (Bureau of Jail Management and Penology) has an adjacent building for COVID-19 positives. These are actually close contacts of an earlier positive px (patient) we swabbed around 120 close contacts at jail.”
“The EOC is in the process of contact tracing and extraction will follow,” said Councilor Joel Garganera, deputy chief implementor of the EOC.
It can also be remembered that the EOC conducted pooled testing in all police stations in the city for over 300 PDLs detained in the police stations on November 4, 2020.
Read more: 316 PDLs undergo pooled testing in Cebu City