Davao City Vice Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte is sick with COVID-19, his sister and City Mayor Sara Duterte confirmed on Wednesday.
“For now, we check up on each other through a video call after we found out that Vice Mayor Baste got COVID-19. Get well soon Vice! Smile,” said Sara in a social media post.
Based on a photo post, Sara held a video call with her father, President Rodrigo Duterte; mother Elizabeth Zimmerman; and brothers Baste and Davao City First District Rep. Paolo Duterte.
Sara assured Davao residents over the weekend that the city government’s services remained uninterrupted, with the help of the Vice Mayor, after being criticized for her recent trips to other regions amid the rising cases of COVID-19 in Davao.
Several parties are grooming the mayor to run for the presidency in 2022 and replace her father, who in turn has been asked by the ruling PDP-Laban party to run for vice president and choose his running mate.
According to OCTA Research Team, Davao City continued to report the highest average number of new cases among cities in Mindanao, with 218 fresh infections per day during July 14 to 20.
Davao is also tagged as a high risk city due to increasing positivity rates, average daily attack rate as well as utilization rate for intensive care units.