Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella.
CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella wants patients who will test positive for the new strains of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) to be placed in separate isolation rooms or centers.
The city government hopes that the new strains will not reach the city, but is already preparing for such a possibility even though a ban on entry for countries with reported new strains will take effect starting December 30, 2020, to January 15, 2021.
“Exactly, they need to be isolated immediately. Ilahi gyod sila (they should be separated),” said the mayor in a press conference on Tuesday, December 29, 2020.
The mayor has given the instructions to the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and the Cebu City Health Department (CCHD) to prepare for the possibility of the entry of the new strain.
The Cebu City Quarantine Center, which no longer had patients after a massive drop in active cases in the past months, is now being prepared for another opening should a new strain surface in the city.
The center still serves as a dialysis center for COVID-19 patients, but since the active cases are averaging 100 per day, these patients are either in their respective hospitals or at the New Oasis for Adaptation and a Home (NOAH) complex.
The mayor said the CCQC is a viable center for patients with a new strain because it boasts of negative pressure facilities.
“We have a negative pressure facility, we have negative pressure ambulances. We are ready,” said the mayor.
While the city is preparing for the possibility of a new strain coming into Cebu City, it is also preparing for the arrival of the possible strongest arsenal it can have against the virus: the vaccines.
Labella reiterated that he was assured by vaccine czar, Secretary Carlito Galvez, Jr., that the city will be among those prioritized for distribution.
The mayor said he wants the frontliners and the indigents to be inoculated first. However, he is willing to take the first shot if it means putting to rest the doubts of the residents of the effectiveness of the much-criticized Sinovac vaccine from China.
“Mas maayo unahon nato ang mga kabos. Pero kung kailangan mag-una kog pa vaccine aron makita sa mga tawo ang effecitivity, mag-una ko aron mosunod ang mga tawo nako,” said the mayor.
Until this writing, there is still no specific date for the arrival of the vaccine. /rcg