Continuing COVID-19 surge in Lucena prompts tighter protocol enforcement

LUCENA CITY—A continuing surge in COVID-19 cases here is prompting authorities to enforce stricter protocol to prevent the spread of SARS Cov2, the virus that causes the disease which has no known cure yet.

On Tuesday (Dec. 1), the city public information office said starting on Dec. 7, the city’s task force against COVID-19 would conduct regular patrols in the city’s 33 villages to arrest violators of an ordinance requiring the wearing of face masks and distancing of at least 1 meter.

Arnel Avila, Lucena public information officer, said at least 20 task force members would be assigned to each village.

The Lucena police had deputized the task force to help authorities enforce health and safety protocol.

The task force will be supervised by police, city administrator, city disaster risk reduction management office, city budget officer, general service officer and village officials.

Violators of the ordinance would be required to render 3 hours of community service s penalty for the first offense. The second offense carries a penalty of 5 hours of community service and P500 in fine. The third offense would be penalized with 7 hours of community service and P1,000 in fine.

The city government provided four hotlines for reporting of violations and violators.

As of Tuesday, Lucena had 1,240 COVID-19 cases with 1,051 recoveries and 42 fatalities.

According to research published on the American Institute of Physics website on Nov. 24, the COVID-19 pandemic could be stopped if at least seven in 10 people wore face masks consistently.

Last week, the OCTA Research, a group of experts monitoring the COVID-19 situation in the Philippines, tagged Lucena anew as one of seven areas in the country that has been classified as “high-risk” for virus transmission.

OCTA urged officials in these areas to step up testing, tracing, and isolation to stop or slow down transmission.

TSB