Health execs want MGCQ for Cebu City until December

CEBU CITY, Cebu, Philippines — While cases of COVID-19 in this city have significantly dropped in the past weeks, local health officials are not letting their guard down.

Dr. Mary Jean Loreche, spokesperson for the Department of Health (DOH) in Central Visayas, said she wanted the city’s modified general community quarantine (MGCQ) status extended until the middle of December. The city’s possible easing into the “new normal” classification in the next couple of months could lead to complacency among Cebuanos, she said.

“We would not want another surge to happen here when we’re having Christmas. So we recommend that it would be better for Cebu City to extend its MGCQ (status) up to mid-December so that we would be able to enjoy a safer Christmas,” Loreche said.

She said the city’s critical care utilization had gone down to less than 15 percent as of Sunday, but she feared that people might turn complacent.“We’re already under MGCQ, but we still see people not wearing their masks. If we proceed to the new normal after two months, we might forget that the virus is still here,” she said.

On June 16, Cebu City was placed under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ), the strictest form of lockdown, due to a surge in the number of COVID-19 cases, as well as its problem of providing critical health-care assistance to patients.

It took a month before the city was downgraded to a slightly relaxed modified ECQ, which allowed the reopening of shopping malls, and some manufacturing and processing plants. On Sept. 1, the city was placed under MGCQ, the most relaxed form of community quarantine.

As of Oct. 11, data from the DOH showed that the city had already recorded 10,123 COVID-19 cases, with 9,091 recoveries and 676 deaths.

—Ador Vincent Mayol