MANILA, Philippines — The Quezon City government placed a street inside a gated community on strict lockdown after it traced six active cases of the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) to the area, it said on Monday.
Called a special concern lockdown (SCL), the extreme measure was enforced on King Christian Street in Kingspoint Subdivision, Barangay Bagbag, after a COVID-19 carrier infected three persons from the same household and two neighbors from different houses.
“We have to enforce SCL so as to [prevent] the virus from spreading to other streets,” said assistant city administrator for operations Alberto Kimpo. There were 59 families and a total of 243 residents in the area, he added.
Rolly Cruz, head of the epidemiology and surveillance unit under the city health department, said his office had started distributing investigation forms to help them determine who needed to undergo COVID-19 testing beginning on Wednesday.
Job requirement
Cruz told the Inquirer that the street’s patient zero found out he was positive after undergoing rapid testing as required by his employer before he could return to work.
He was referred by barangay officials to the health department for a confirmatory swab test and the results also came back positive.
This prompted a flurry of contact tracing that led to the discovery of other cases on the same street, Cruz said.
There are four areas in Quezon City under SCL, including Kaingin Bukid in Barangay Apolonio Samson, parts of Ermin Garcia Street and Imperial Street in Barangay E. Rodriguez and the upper half of Calle 29 in Barangay Libis.