Pedestrians cross San Pedro Street, one of the main thoroughfares in Davao City, on Friday. The city is placed under General Community Quarantine (GCQ) effective immediately until November 30, 2020, following the rise of COVID-19 cases in the city. Edge Davao
Davao City has reverted to General Community Quarantine (GCQ) effective Friday until November 30, 2020, due to the surge of COVID-19 cases, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque announced on Friday.
Melquiades Feliciano, deputy chief implementer of the National Task Force (NTF) Against Covid-19 for the Cities and Bacolod and Cebu, has been assigned to head the Coordinated Operations to Defeat the Epidemic (CODE) teams that will be deployed to Davao City to assist in the response activities.
Roque said a ‘One Hospital’ Command Center will likewise be established in the city to ensure an efficient referral system as private hospitals are mandated to increase their ward bed occupancy by at least 20 percent to 30 percent.
He also said that efforts will be made to address the shortage of nurses in health facilities and to provide additional high-oxygen cannulae, Favipiravir (Avigan), Remdesivir, medical equipment, among others.
Roque added that accommodation establishments will be tapped to serve as quarantine facilities for health workers as well as the isolation of positive cases of Covid-19. Law enforcement agencies are directed to assist in the enforcement of granular lockdowns upon affected communities or clusters, and if necessary, deploy personnel in the city.
It can be recalled that Carlito Galvez, chief implementer of NTF Covid-19, has recommended to place the entire Davao City under GCQ during a meeting of the Coordinated Operations to Defeat Epidemic (CODE) Team held at the Camp Quintin Merecido of the Police Regional Office (PRO) 11 on Wednesday.
Galvez also recommended to the city government to implement localized ECQ in barangays with high number of Covid-19 cases particularly the coastal areas. The Department of Health-Epidemiology Bureau recently reported that the new cases in the last 14 days of the city came from these areas. Barangays Buhangin, Barangay 19-B, Talomo Poblacion, Agdao, and Bucana were identified as Covid-19 hotspots.
In a virtual presser last week, Dr. Ashley Lopez of the City Health Office (CHO) has affirmed there is a surge of Covid-19 cases in Davao City, which started third week of October this year. He said the surge is being attributed to local transmission because of the clustering of individuals and undetected Covid cases.
“Naa ta’y surge of Covid-19 cases in Davao City that started third week of October this year. I’ve been consistently saying na wala na ta’y problema sa locally stranded individuals (LSIs) as we have controlled the cases from LSIs. We have actually problem on local transmission, we have to accept that Covid has already reached local transmission in Davao City and that is why we have increasing cases,” Lopez said.
Lopez affirmed that some factors that attributed to the increasing Covid-19 cases in Davao City are those undetected cases before or some close contacts of a confirmed Covid patients who manifested symptoms recently.
“Daghan ta ug mga kaso ug kaning mga kasuha dili lang ni karon lang kay mga miagi pa ni nga mga undetected cases or kato mga close contacts sauna nga nag-manifest or katong mga second generations, wala ni na-detect sauna,” he said.
Based on the regional situation update on Covid-19 in Davao Region as of 5 p.m. of November 19, 2020, Department of Health 11-Davao Center for Health Development reported 161 new cases wherein 106 new cases are from Davao City, 42 are from Davao del Sur, six are from Davao del Norte, three are from Davao Oriental, and two each from Davao De Oro and Davao Occidental-bringing the total number of active cases in Davao Region to 2,378.
Ten deaths were also reported including eight from Davao City and two from Davao del Sur.
There are also 98 recoveries reported and among these, 54 are from Davao City, 21 are from Davao del Norte, 13 are from Davao del Sur, five are from Davao Oriental, four are from Davao de Oro, and one from Davao Occidental.
There are a total of 1,450 persons were of which 161 tested positive for Covid-19. After further investigation, one case from Davao del Sur (DR-7582), which was reported last Nov. 17, was a resident from Davao City, Thus, removing this case from Davao del Sur’s statistics and adding it to Davao City.
