Neighborhoods in 21 barangays with the most active coronavirus cases will be considered for a granular lockdown.

Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu, overseer of Cebu COVID-19 response for the Interagency Task Force (IATF), said on Tuesday, July 21, that while he believes Cebu City is ready for a general community quarantine (GCQ) by the end of the month, they would implement hard lockdowns in sitios or neighborhoods in the following villages with the highest concentration of active cases:

• Lahug – 38
• Guadalupe – 29
• Capitol Site – 23
• Talamban – 23
• Kamputhaw – 18
• Mabolo – 18
• Poblacion Pardo – 17
• Tisa – 17
• Sambag 1 – 15
• Apas – 14
• Labangon – 12
• Basak Pardo – 11
• Cogon Ramos – 10
• Punta Princesa – 10
• Sambag 2 – 9
• Quiot – 9
• Zapatera – 8
• Banilad – 7
• Hipodromo – 7
• Basak San Nicholas – 7
• Cogon Pardo – 7

Cimatu on June 25 identified 12 barangays with the highest number of cases that were supposed to be placed on total lockdown. But the IATF did not follow through with the original barangay-wide lockdown plans, instead opting for the neigborhood-level lockdowns.

Cimatu said that city hall will issue an executive order on the specific neighborhoods set for total lockdown within the week.

Containing the surge

While Cebu City was previously named a hot spot, with the highest number of cases in the country, the Department of Health noted that new infections started to go down after the last enhanced community quarantine period between July 1 and 16.

According to the University of the Philippines OCTA Research, the replication rate (R0) in Cebu City has already gone down to 1.14 from a high of 2 back in June. “Cebu province has been able to contain the surge and is on the way to flattening the epidemic curve,” OCTA said in its report. “For Cebu City, we recommend the continuation of the strict quarantine strategy to sustain the gains already achieved.”

“We are making progress now because of contact tracing. I am expecting na bababa (ang cases sa Cebu City) by next week. So, hopefully by the end of the month, we’ll go down to GCQ (general community quarantine),” Cimatu said on Tuesday.

Cebu City has a total of 8,302 confirmed novel coronavirus cases so far. At least 4,583 have recovered, leaving 3.304 active cases here.

The Department of Health in Region 7 said this was the first time Cebu City had more recoveries than active cases and deaths.

A total of 415 people have died from the virus here, per DOH data.

Despite this, Cebu City still has the highest number of both active cases and total cases in the country.

Quezon City, where the second highest number of cases are, has 5,304 confirmed cases with 2,087 active cases.

Total coronavirus cases in the Philippines stand at 72,269 as of Wednesday, July 22. The number of deaths total 1,843 with recoveries at 23,623. – Rappler.com