TACLOBAN CITY—The island town of Zumarraga, Samar province reported its first COVID-19 cases involving four stranded individuals returning to the fifth class municipality with a population of about 16,000.
On Thursday, Mayor Myrna Tan ordered a lockdown on the villages where these COVID-19 patients reside to prevent transmission.
Eastern Visayas currently has 445 COVID-19 cases, the Department of Health (DOH) regional office said.
On Wednesday (June 24), Interior Secretary Eduardo Ano and Carlito Galvez, Jr., chief implementer of the National Task Force Against COVID-19, met with Leyte officials to discuss the province’s COVID-19 situation.
Among the appeals made by the mayors was to set a limit on the number of stranded individuals returning to the province and even those who are coming back through the national government’s Balik Probinsya program.
“They have promised to look into it,” said former Leyte governor Carlos Jericho Petilla, who serves as a consultant of the League of Mayors in Leyte.
According to Petilla, there has been no coordination with local government units on the return of stranded individuals.