Cebu placed under enhanced community quarantine

CEBU CITY – Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia has placed the entire province under “enhanced community quarantine (ECQ)” in a bid to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus or COVID-19.

The ECQ will start at 12 midnight of March 30 until further notice.

Garcia said the ECQ is basically a “stay at home” order for everyone but exceptions to certain people doing essential work.

The governor will also suspend all public transport. Certain companies exempted from the work stoppage are to provide vehicles for their employees.

Garcia said the local chief executives or the mayors of each component town or city will be given the freehand in implementing her order, including the distribution of quarantine passes for persons allowed to go out of their homes to buy essential supplies.

Garcia’s announcement came hours after Cebu City Mayor Edgardo Labella ordered an ECQ in the Queen City of the South from 12 noon of Saturday, March 28 to April 28, 2020.

So far, Cebu only has one positive case of the COVID-19 involving a “professional” who is recuperating at a private hospital in Mandaue City.

As of Thursday, March 26, however, the Department of Health in Central Visayas has monitored 12 “presumptive” positive cases in Cebu City and one each in the cities of Lapu-Lapu, Mandaue, Cebu province, and Negros Oriental.

Their test results were sent for confirmatory tests to the Research Institute of Tropical Medicine in Muntinlupa City. Initial testing was done at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City.