Twelve barangays in Cebu City were identified Thursday as hotspots for the coronavirus pandemic while authorities suspended the issuance of travel authority for locally stranded individuals (LSIs) bound for the provinces in Samar and Leyte.
Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu said the 12 barangays would be placed under strict lockdown to avoid transmission of the virus to other communities, with Lt. Gen. Guillermo Eleazar, commander of Joint Task Force COVID Shield, saying members of SAF, an elite unit of the Philippine National Police, would be deployed to Cebu City to help impose discipline on “hardheaded” residents.
“[The] SAF commandos are known to be strict in enforcing the quarantine rules which subsequently compelled hardheaded residents to stay in their houses,” Eleazar said, referring to the time SAF forces helped enforce enhanced community quarantine in Metro Manila.
At the same time, Eleazar, task force commander, said the suspension of the travel authority for locally stranded individuals (LSIs) bound for Eastern Visayas provinces was upon the order of Interior Secretary Eduardo Año who approved the request made by local chief executives in the region.
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“According to our Secretary Año, the isolation facilities of these local government units are still full and they want to unclog these facilities first before they accept new batches of LSIs,” Eleazar said in a statement.
Eleazar said all chiefs of police and station commanders and the Directorate for Operations of the PNP were advised to inform LSIs of the measure.
Cimatu, tasked by President Rodrigo Duterte to address the spike in COVID-19 cases in Cebu City, said 160 members of the Special Action Forces and 200 more police personnel would be deployed as augmentation forces for the enforcement of community quarantine measures in the city.
Officials of the National Task Force Against COVID-19 earlier visited Eastern Visayas and met with local officials to discuss concerns and map out strategies to address the rising number of infections in the region.
“Our local chief executives said that if they continue accepting LSIs, they will no longer have enough quarantine facilities to accommodate the arriving LSIs. And since our local chief executives do not want home quarantine, they decided and requested that the best way to address the problem is to suspend the travel of the LSIs to the region for two weeks,” said Eleazar.
LGUs have been implementing their respective quarantine protocols for the arriving LSIs to protect their respective constituents from the coronavirus which might have been carried by asymptomatic LSIs.
Part of the local protocols is for the LSIs to be quarantined in isolation facilities designated by the LGUs before they are allowed to join their respective families.
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Eleazar said they would wait for the advice of the NTF Against COVID-19 as to when LSIs would again be allowed to travel to Eastern Visayas before resuming the issuance of travel authority.
Eastern Visayas, which consists of the provinces of Leyte, Southern Leyte, Samar, Northern Samar, Eastern Samar and Biliran, has so far recorded a total of 431 cases of COVID-19 with 392 active cases. Meanwhile, a private hospitals organization public relations officer on Thursday said Cebu City had failed in observing social distancing, wearing masks and handwashing, which might be a reason for the continuous spread of the COVID-19.
Dr. Peter Mancao, public relations officer of the Cebu Medical Society, likewise said Cebu City private hospitals were full and nurses would like to quit as they were fearing for their lives.
“The nurses are afraid. They are scared. The morale is low,” Mancao said during an interview on ABS-CBN’s Teleradyo, heard nationwide.
He said they would have to look for a way to improve the morale, such as giving them more personal protective equipment (PPEs).
President Rodrigo Duterte reverted the city to strict lockdown or enhanced community quarantine starting June 16 from general community quarantine due to the rising number of infections.
“We should not take this virus lightly,” Mancao said.
Mancao said he thought the city failed in conducting precautionary measures such as social distancing, handwashing and wearing of masks.
Mancao advised some of the private hospitals to convert to a full COVID facility, possibly add more COVID rooms in some hospitals.
The Department of Health in Central Visayas has deployed more nurses to private hospitals and provided additional PPEs, according to spokesperson and chief pathologist Dr. Mary Jean Loreche.
Mancao also proposed for COVID-19 designated hospitals to focus on the virus for a month as he said some were retrofitting their regular ICUs to accommodate more patients.
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“If you go to the ER practically anybody there is intubated. The waiting time to get in, speaking from a personal experience from my relative, they called in at 11 a.m., they were admitted to the ER at 8 in the evening. By 10 p.m. the patient was intubated,” he said.
“My take is if patients who come to ER are taken cared of, the system is taken cared of, there is no waiting time, nobody will complain,we are okay. But I think we have to correct that before we go back to GCQ or normal.”
As of Wednesday, Cebu City has logged 4,216 cases of COVID-19, with 328 recoveries and 69 deaths.
The 12 barangays placed under strict lockdown: Sambag II; Kamputhaw; Sambag 1; Basak San Nicola; Mabolo; Guadalupe; Lahug; Duljo Fatima; Tinago; Tisa; Ermita; and Tejero.