Grace Carungay, head of the City Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit (CESU), says increase in COVID-19 cases due to end of celebrations of Christmas and New Year and the situation after typhoon Odette devastated the city. | CDN Digital file photo (Futch Anthony Inso)
LAPU-LAPU CITY, Philippines — Lapu-Lapu City has noted an increase in COVID-19 cases from none in December last year to one case in January 4, 2022 and to 30 new cases in January 9, 2022.
Grace Carungay, head of the City Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit, attributed the increase to the recent celebration of Christmas and the New Year and the situation brought about by the devastation of typhoon Odette.
“Tungod kay nahuman na ta sa atoang Christmas celebration, New year, unya nilabay sad nato si Bagyong Odette which is nikumpyansa sad ta. Mostly makit-an nato sa atong dalan, wala nay mask. So mao na ang resulta, nitaas sad ang atong kaso,” Carungay said.
(This is because the Christmas and New Year celebrations have already ended and with the passing of typhoon Odette in the city and we became complacent. Mostly, we see people on the street without a mask. So that is the result. Our cases increased.)
Carungay said that since December last year, the city had not recorded even a single case of the virus.
But on January 4, they started to record a single case of COVID-19, until it reaches a double-digit case in a day.
She said that on Sunday, January 9, 2022, the city logged 30 new cases of the virus, while their active cases already have already reached 75.
She also said that of the 75 active cases, 10 were in isolation facilities, 3 were admitted in different hospitals, while the rest were on home isolation.
Carungay also clarified that the city had not yet recorded a COVID Omicron variant and that they could not associate the increase of COVID-19 cases in the city to the presence of the Omicron variant in the country.
“Dili gyud ta makaingon nga mao na siya nga variant, not unless atong na-send sa Genome. So kinahanglan pa gyud na siya i-process,” she added.
(We cannot say that that is the variant, not unless we sent our genome. So this needed to be processed yet.)
In line with this, Carungay appealed to the public to continue to observe the health and safety protocols, especially the wearing of a face mask.
Meanwhile, Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Junard “Ahong” Chan said that they were still waiting for the decision of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) on their appeal of the IATF ruling to place the city under alert level 3.
Earlier, the mayor made the appeal, saying that an encoder from the Lapu-Lapu City Hospital encoded the wrong data and included the suspect cases in the Department of Health COVID-19 tracker.
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