Home Quarantine No Longer Allowed for Cebu City COVID-19 Cases

Cebu City residents who contracted the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) will no longer be allowed to undergo home quarantine, according to an interview with the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Eduardo Año.

“Dapat wala munang home quarantine, lahat ng positive ay ilalagay sa facilities. Pag naka-home quarantine yan, maraming violation yan at hindi talaga yan maipatutupad ng maayos, dapat talaga i-extract mo ang lahat ng positive, ilagay natin sa isolation facility. (No more home quarantine for now. All people found positive should be brought to facilities. There are many violations during home quarantine and protocols cannot be implemented strictly so you have to extract all those who are positive and bring them to isolation facilities),” the Interior chief during a radio interview on Sunday with the Philippine News Agency.

Año, also the vice chairperson of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID), added that many residents resort to home quarantine but is violated often, which results in the dreaded community transmission.

Año also added that there is a need for the stricter implementation of checkpoints and health protocols in the city as they have noticed that many residents refrain from observing protocols such as the wearing of face masks and the observation of physical distancing.

The priority of reopening the economy was a factor that led to the spike in the rate of contamination of the virus, he added. “Nagkaroon sila ng isang priority na sana buksan ang economy pero at the end ay dumami yung movement at dumami rin yung (rate of) contamination. (They had one priority which is to open the economy but at the end of the day, the movement, as well as the rate of contamination, increased).”

Cebu City Mayor Edgardo “Edgar” Labella is “very supportive” of the measure, according to Año. (GFB)