Cebu City Locks Down One More Sitio Over Covid-19

The city government has placed another sitio (sub-village) under lockdown after a resident there was found positive of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19), bringing the total of new cases on Tuesday to six.

Mayor Edgardo Labella ordered late Tuesday to place Sitio A. Lopez under lockdown after it recorded a confirmed Covid-19 case.

The positive case from A. Lopez was discovered along with five other confirmed cases in Sitio Zapatera of Barangay Luz that was ordered to be placed under mandatory lockdown last Sunday.

Labella has instructed Cebu City Police acting chief, Col. Josefino Ligan, to implement the “total lockdown” in A. Lopez, a densely-populated sub-village of Barangay Labangon.

“(We) have six new Covid-19 cases today (Tuesday),” he said in a statement, adding that all of these new positive cases in Cebu City “are all asymptomatic.”

While under tight watch, Sitio Zapatera recorded five cases among residents who underwent tests after two of their neighbors were earlier confirmed to have been infected with the virus after the first case, a 64-year-old driver.

Labella instructed Yvonne Feliciano, administrator of the Cebu City Medical Center to facilitate the transfer of the six individuals from Zapatera and A. Lopez to the hospital’s isolation facility.

“The contact tracing of our Covid-19 patients continue. In relation to that, I already directed Dr. (Daisy) Villa to conduct massive testing using the 18,000 test kits we bought for the department,” Feliciano said.

On Monday, Villa, head of the Cebu City Health Department (CHD), designated five teams from her office to gather swab samples from 100 residents of Sitio Zapatera. The result has yet to be released.

According to the Department of Health (DOH) 7 (Central Visayas) monitoring report, the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center Sub-National Laboratory (VSMMC SNL) has released, as of 5 p.m. on Tuesday, 122 test results that showed seven new positive cases — six from this city and one from Lapu-Lapu City.

Dr. Jaime Bernadas, chief of the DOH-7 CHD, said Tuesday’s test results have brought the total confirmed cases in the region to 45, from 38 in two straight days (Sunday and Monday).

“There is an additional one repeat negative from a previously confirmed case. We now have 23 laboratory negative cases. We do not have reported deaths today due to Covid-19 here in Central Visayas,” Bernadas said in a statement.

Due to the rising number of viral infections, Labella appealed to city residents to follow all the Covid-19 protocols.

“I appeal to the city residents to stay at home if they don’t have any important concerns outside the house,” he added. (PNA)