Virus cases in Cebu sitio: 53 in 4 days

CALL FOR HELP Residents in the heavily populated community of Zapatera in Cebu City’s Barangay Luz are asking local officials to isolate their neighbors who contracted COVID-19 to prevent the spread of the highly contagious disease in their village. —RUEL ROSELLO, Cebu City Public Information Office

CEBU CITY—Residents of a densely populated sitio (subvillage) in Barangay Luz here appealed to local officials to remove from their community and isolate neighbors who contracted the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) after 53 confirmed cases had been recorded in the area in just four days.

But Mayor Edgardo Labella told reporters on Thursday that only those who exhibited symptoms of infection could be taken to the city government-run Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC). Those who remained asymptomatic would be isolated at Barrio Luz National High School in the village, he said.

Sitio Zapatera, a poor community struggling amid upscale commercial and high-rise condominium enclaves in the city’s uptown area, has been on lockdown since April 12 after three residents tested positive for COVID-19.

Community testing

But the number of confirmed cases there ballooned to 53 as of 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, after the city health office conducted massive swab testing. The sitio has a population of about 9,000, or half that of the barangay.

The confirmed cases in Zapatera had represented more than half of the city’s 77 COVID-19 cases as of Thursday.

According to Labella, only five of the confirmed cases in Zapatera were sent to CCMC, which has only five available isolation rooms.

A sitio resident, in a Facebook post, said many residents felt they were all at risk of getting infected since they could no longer get in and out of their community following the lockdown imposed by the city government.

“We feel like we are hanging by a thread. Just a few movements and the thread will snap,” according to the resident, whose post had been shared 136 times as of Thursday afternoon.

Not surprising

“So depressing yet not surprising. Per protocol, if the patient is not in critical condition, they would be allowed to isolate themselves at home,” the post read. “Hello DOH (Department of Health)? This protocol is intended for the rich whose houses are big and distant from each other. You forget that there are also poor people here whose houses are so close to each other.”

But Dr. Daisy Villa, chief of the Cebu City Health Office, would not recommend the pullout of the afflicted residents.

“The best way to address the spread of the virus in Sitio Zapatera is by ordering a total lockdown … I believe that the virus has already spread and that there is already a community transmission there. So we will solve it from there,” she told the Inquirer.