Surge of COVID-19 cases in Caloocan? Mayor puzzled by DOH report

MANILA, Philippines — Caloocan City Mayor Oscar Malapitan on Friday contradicted the health department’s record of a sudden increase of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases in the city, saying the city has only reported single-digit cases over the past weeks.

“For the past few weeks, single-digit lang ang na-register sa amin (We only registered single-digit cases in the past few weeks.),” said Malapitan over ABS-CBN News Channel, reacting to the Department of Health’s record of 77 new cases in the city on Thursday, Nov. 26.

“One-hundred nine lang ang active cases […] so nagulat ako maraming cases sa Caloocan. Maraming nakarecover pero mayroon na lang kaming 109 active cases,” he went on.

(We only have 109 active cases so I was surprised that there were a lot of cases in Caloocan. There are many people who recovered but right now we have at least 109 active cases.)

In Caloocan, Malapitan said they have 12,506 total cases of the coronavirus disease with  350 deaths and 12,047 recoveries.

Moreover, Malapitan underscored their programs to curb the further increase of transmission of the coronavirus disease.

“We have so many programs on how to combat this virus. I even tapped the police para sa ganoon, iikot sila, nagroronda ang pulis sa mga loob. Kasi If you would notice sa labas, naka-face mask lahat ng tao. Sa looban, nandoon ang hindi gumagamit ng face mask,” he said.

(I tapped the police so that they can inspect villages. If you would notice people outside are wearing face masks.  But indoors, some are not wearing face masks.)

On Thursday afternoon, the DOH registered 1,392 additional coronavirus disease cases nationwide. Of this number, Caloocan topped the list of provinces or cities with the highest number of COVID-19 cases.

In the past, the DOH recorded cases by region but revised its reporting by province or city last October this year.

/MUF