TUGUEGARAO CITY, Cagayan, Philippines — This regional capital of Cagayan Valley will be placed under a 10-day hard lockdown to curb rising cases of COVID-19, Mayor Jefferson Soriano said.
The Regional Inter-Agency Task Force against COVID-19 on Tuesday approved the recommendation to put the city under an enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) starting Wednesday.
On Jan. 16, the city registered 84 new COVID-19 cases, the highest in a single day since the pandemic. Tuguegarao, the provincial capital of Cagayan, posted at least 235 active cases on Tuesday among the more than 900 infections recorded since March last year.
Soriano said the city government would implement tougher measures to reduce the infections after local health officials tagged the city as a “high-risk” area for COVID-19 based on the task force’s guidelines.
Restaurant dining would be prohibited and essential businesses would operate with just 50-percent workforce as the city shifted to ECQ, the strictest form of quarantine status, from the most relaxed modified general community quarantine (MGCQ).The city government also imposed a liquor ban and ordered an aggressive community testing for 1,500 people.
Soriano, however, said online classes would continue and teachers would be allowed to distribute modules but with limited movement and skeleton workforce.
The ECQ may be extended depending on the status of the infections in the city after 10 days, he said.
Warning vs panic buying
Ma. Salvacion Castillejos, provincial director of the Department of Trade and Industry, cautioned the public against panic buying as she gave assurance that the city had enough stocks of basic goods in groceries and supermarkets.
Delivery of goods, she said, would not be hampered during the ECQ. Baggao town, as recommended by the task force, shifted to a stricter modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ), the second most restrictive form of isolation, from Jan. 21 to Jan. 31.
Local health officials said virus transmissions in at least 13 villages had caused COVID-19 cases to spike in Baggao. As of Tuesday, the town had recorded 137 cases, with 65 classified as active.
Dr. Carlos Cortina III, provincial health officer, has asked the Department of Health for more test kits to augment the mass testing in Baggao, which was previously under MGCQ.
Naval station
In Zambales province, the Philippine Navy’s training station in San Antonio town was placed on a 14-day lockdown after 15 of its students contracted COVID-19.
Contact tracing was under way at the Naval Education, Training and Doctrine Command (NETDC) while the temporary lockdown, which began on Jan. 13, is in effect, said Dr. Noel Bueno, provincial health director.
It was not immediately known how the NETDC students contracted the virus, which was first detected in three students from Jan. 13 to Jan. 15.
About 65 of the students’ direct contacts were still waiting for results of their reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests, Bueno told the Inquirer.
Zambales, as of Tuesday, had recorded 777 COVID-19 cases, 25 of which remained active. It also listed 734 recoveries and 17 deaths. —REPORTS FROM VILLAMOR VISAYA JR. AND JOANNA ROSE AGLIBOT