Mayor Edgardo Labella on Tuesday announced that 36 of the 80 barangays in the city are now cleared of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
He said based on the data gathered by the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) as of Monday, the city has detected no single active case of Covid-19 in those 36 villages.
The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Infectious Diseases (IATF) established EOC in Cebu City last June after President Rodrigo Duterte sent Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu here to oversee the Covid-19 response.
The Department of Health in Central Visayas (DOH-7), however, showed a slight increase in active Covid-19 cases in the city from 335 a week ago to 356 based on it’s Monday case bulletin.
But the city detected only nine additional new cases against the 37 additional reported recoveries, which brought the total number of recoveries here to 8,732. The number is 89.5 percent of the 9,750 total infections since the onset of the pandemic.
Labella also announced last week that 49 of the 53 barangay isolation centers were shut already down since the number of patients has dropped significantly.
The mayor said while there is a reason to be jubilant because of this achievement, he urged the Cebuanos to be conscious of the presence of coronavirus in the community and to be mindful in observing minimum health standards such as wearing of face mask and physical distancing, among others.
Lawyer Rey Gealon, Labella’s spokesperson and city attorney, said in a virtual presser Monday that the city will continue to strictly enforce the health protocols, especially to establishments allowed to reopen under the modified general community quarantine (MGCQ).
“The mayor is serious in implementing the minimum health protocols and keeps on reminding the Business Permit and Licensing Office to always inspect establishments and if they are not enforcing it, we will shut them down,” Gealon said in Cebuano.
He said 70 establishments were ordered closed or voluntarily ceased operations for violating the protocols. They were slapped with a penalty of suspension of work.
Of the 70, seven got a 14-day work suspension while the rest were allowed to reopen after three to five days of closure. (PNA)
