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CEBU CITY, Philippines – Areas with high cases of COVID-19 in Cebu province shall be subjected to granular lockdowns, the Capitol announced.
Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia on Monday, August 9, ordered mayors of the province’s towns and component cities to impose “household or purok level lockdowns” to contain the spread of the infection.
Garcia virtually met with all mayors on Monday to discuss measures in addressing the spike of COVID-19 cases in the province, which is also facing threats of the highly transmissible Delta variant.
The governor said all mayors agreed on instituting lockdowns but at the purok level only, provided that at least 10 percent of the households in a certain community are infected.
“In the matter of containing, we set an across the board per purok, and dili na per barangay. I gave this to the mayors: kamo maoy in the best position to know the actual situation. So kamo, your Emergency Operations Centers, will determine (sa) kahimtang,” Garcia said.
Garcia also said most of the mayors agreed to keep lockdowns to the purok-level only as one of their means in “striking a balance between public health crisis and saving the economy.”
“Total lockdowns are out of the question… Because we still have to balance the economy and health… It (total lockdown) is not sustainable,” she explained.
In terms of contact tracing, the provincial government also directed municipal and city health officers to immediately isolate, and collect swab samples for RT-PCR tests from symptomatic first-generation contacts of a confirmed COVID-19 patient.
For asymptomatic ones, said Garcia, they will have to undergo home isolation for at least seven days, and subject themselves to rapid antigen tests.
Cebu province’s active cases of COVID-19 have reached 4,447 as of August 8, based on the bulletin from the Department of Health in Central Visayas (DOH-7).
In a span of one week, from August 1 to August 8, the province logged a total of 2,747 new cases of the infection, of which 125 happened to be mortalities.
The province is currently under General Community Quarantine (GCQ) with heightened restrictions.
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/ dcb