Mayor seeks aid as ECQ gets extended in Tuguegarao

HOLDING AREA Patients stay in a makeshift holding area in this photo taken on Aug. 13 while waiting to be admitted to Cagayan Valley Medical Center in Tuguegarao City which is running out of vacant beds for COVID-19 patients. —PHOTO COURTESY OF DR. GLENN MATHEW BAGGAO

TUGUEGARAO CITY, Cagayan, Philippines — Mayor Jefferson Soriano appealed for aid as the 10-day enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) covering this city was extended for another seven days from Aug. 21 due to soaring infections.

During the Luzon lockdown last year, Tuguegarao received P50 million in assistance from the national government that was spent on relief goods for residents, said Soriano in a virtual news briefing on Sunday.

“For this year, however, we never received any funds so we appeal for help from the national government [to provide for relief goods],” he said.

As of Saturday, Tuguegarao’s active cases soared to 1,255 with 129 new cases. “This is alarming because out of our active cases, 161 are front-liners and among them are 115 health workers,” Soriano said.

The city’s largest number of deaths in a single day was 14 on Aug. 20, of whom 13 died while under home quarantine while the last expired at Cagayan Valley Medical Center, Soriano added.

He said the city did not have enough funds to assist hundreds of residents forced to stay home during the ECQ.

To halt the spread of COVID-19, the city government wanted to intensify its vaccination campaign but Tuguegarao (population: 166,334 as of the 2020 census), has so far inoculated only 28 percent of the eligible population, said Dr. Jocari Chua, who heads the vaccination program of the city health office.

Spikes in Tarlac, Pampanga

Tarlac province, which is under general community quarantine, also saw a spike in cases, with 130 new infections on Saturday that raised its active cases to 1,402.

The new cases include a 2-month-old girl from San Isidro village in Tarlac City who has been confined at a hospital, a 1-year-old boy from Victoria town who is under quarantine and 12 other youngsters age 5 to 14 years old. The infants have displayed mild symptoms.

Tarlac City, the provincial capital, has the biggest number of active cases at 478, followed by Capas town with 173 and Victoria with 113 active cases.

In Pampanga, the active cases also climbed to 4,612 after 393 new cases were recorded on Saturday, the highest number of infections in a single day for the province.

The numbers did not include Angeles City’s tally of 1,113 active cases after 40 more residents contracted COVID-19 on Saturday.

—REPORTS FROM VILLAMOR VISAYA JR., JUN A MALIG AND TONETTE OREJAS