A community in Kananga, Leyte was placed under lockdown on Wednesday afternoon to prevent the potential spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).

Mayor Manuel Vicente Torres issued Executive Order MMO20-37, placing Sitio (sub-village) Kawayan in Rizal village under lockdown starting 5 p.m. on June 17 until lifted.

The directive was ordered a day after the Department of Health (DOH) confirmed its first case, a female resident of Kawayan, currently confined at the Eastern Visayas Regional Medical Center (EVRMC) in Tacloban City.

Torres said the patient’s husband came home from EVRMC on June 15 before the wife was confirmed positive for the virus, prompting the local government to place the sub-village with about 45 households under strict home quarantine.

As directed, residents of the community are not allowed to go out of their respective houses except for health workers, uniformed personnel, government employees performing official functions, village officials who must not leave their respective areas, and service workers or those employed in drug stores, and death care service establishments, among others.

“All residents of this area are classified as persons under monitoring and will be subjected to quarantine protocols as directed by the Covid-19 task force through the local health office,” Torres said.

All other commercial, industrial, retail, and other activities not mentioned in the exemptions are suspended within the specified period of the precautionary lockdown, he added.

Meanwhile, two adjacent communities in Kawayan and San Isidro villages were also placed under lockdown on June 15 after a resident had close contact with a coronavirus patient from nearby Ormoc City.

Since the Covid-19 outbreak in the country, a total of 342 cases have been confirmed in Eastern Visayas.

Of the total, 160 are from Leyte, 74 from Samar, 42 from Ormoc City, 33 from Southern Leyte, 21 from Tacloban City, seven from Northern Samar, four from Biliran, and one from Eastern Samar. (PNA)