Cebu City appeals to IATF to relax restrictions to GCQ

MANILA – Cebu City Mayor Edgar Labella on Thursday urged the country’s coronavirus task force to further ease the lockdown in the city as the number of new infections have abated.

In a letter addressed to the regional task force spearheading response to the COVID-19 crisis, Labella said the city was ready to shift to looser general community quarantine (GQC).

“Our strategic community testing has already been completed and we are confident that the City of Cebu is ready to transition into General Community Quarantine,” he wrote.

To date, the city has recorded 2,013 coronavirus infections, of whom 25 died or a case fatality rate of 1.2 percent.

The number of people who have recovered from the illness was at 394.

The city’s critical care utilization rate has improved to 40 percent while the doubling time of COVID-19 cases has slowed to 7 days.

“There is significant indication that there is a continuous reduction of additional cases in the city,” Labella claimed.

The mayor believed relaxing the community quarantine restriction was a logical step, but with the discretion to place critical areas under lockdown.

Tagged as high-risk area for COVID-19 transmission, the task force placed the city under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) from May 16 to 31.

Labella indicated that a new resolution, which has not been officially released, would put the city under modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) from June 1 to 15.

As of Thursday, the Philippines has recorded 15,588 COVID-19 cases, with 921 fatalities and 3,598 recoveries.

– Report from Annie Fe Perez, ABS-CBN News
 

Source From:https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/05/28/20/cebu-city-appeals-to-iatf-to-relax-restrictions-to-gcq