Cebu City should ‘remain’ under ECQ
ENVIRONMENT Secretary Roy Cimatu on Tuesday said he recommended to President Rodrigo Duterte to keep Cebu City under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) to contain the increasing cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) in the city.
Cimatu, overseer of the government’s of granular — sitio- or village-level Covid-19 response in Cebu, — lockdowns over continued also said the President should extend rise in confirmed cases in the city. the ECQ and the continued implementation He noted that Cebu City logged 13 additional fatalities caused by the respiratory illness just on Monday, which he said was higher than the average number of daily recorded fatalities in the country at 10 to 12 deaths.
“So, itongayonangakingano, i- continue natinang ECQ because to them, umpisapalangitoeh (So, for now my recommendation is to continue the ECQ in Cebu City because, for them, this is just the beginning),” Cimatu said during Malacañang’s virtual news briefing.
Four employees of the Cebu City Hall, including a Sangguniang Panlungsod (City Council) member in Cebu City who tested positive for Covid-19, died, according to Rey Gealon, spokesman for the Cebu City Hall during a virtual news briefing also on Tuesday.
The fatalities were identified as Antonio Cuenco, 84, city council member and former lawmaker; Crisanto Amper, 55, sanitary inspector of the Cebu City Health Department; Danilo Gabiana, 62, engineer of the
Department of Public Services; and Mommy Lee Garcia, a barangay (village) health worker.
The Philippine flag displayed in front of the Cebu City Hall was flown at half-mast as a sign of mourning.
Gealon said 67 employees (frontliners) of the Cebu City Hall also tested positive for Covid-19.
He said 12 employees who tested positive for Covid-19 are from the Cebu City Health, 19 are from Ambulance Services and 36 are barangay health workers.
He added that the Cebu City Hall employees who tested positive for Covid-19 were the ones who conducted swab testing, rapid testing and contact tracing.
Gealon said the Cebu City government provided P500 per day as hazard pay to employees who are frontliners of Covid-19, compensatory leave to medical frontliners, burial assistance to Covid-19 deaths, and financial assistance to Cebu City residents.